Flexible Arrays / Timers

[tjmoore1993]

Hello, I haven't been on in a long time. I have gotten' ideas from my old game and wanted to improve on it. I plan on though remaking it, which by all means would really make a difference.

What I plan on doing is not ADDING DELAY! Delay stops the game, although it is a quick fix, so what I am doing is adding a timer system so I can have things working in the background.

So far, I've sketched a rough draft of how my timers will work.

Turing:

View.Set ("offscreenonly") var Arrow : int := Pic.FileNew ("BULLET.bmp") Pic.SetTransparentColour (Arrow, 3) type OBJECT_BULLET :     record         X : int         Y : int     end record var BULLET : flexible array 1 .. 0 of OBJECT_BULLET type OBJECT_CHARACTER :     record         X : int         Y : int         TIME : int         TIMEUPDATE : int     end record var CHARACTER : OBJECT_CHARACTER % This will be changed  for multiplayer purposes in the future var KEY : array char of boolean var DELAY : array 1 .. 2 of int := init (700, 20) CHARACTER.X := 10 CHARACTER.Y := 100 CHARACTER.TIME := 0 CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE := 0 const Velocity := 1 procedure TIMER (TYPE : int)     CHARACTER.TIME := Time.Elapsed     if CHARACTER.TIME > DELAY (TYPE) + CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE then         CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE := CHARACTER.TIME         CHARACTER.TIME -= CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE     end if end TIMER loop     loop         cls         Input.KeyDown (KEY)         if KEY (KEY_UP_ARROW) and CHARACTER.TIME - CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE <= 0 then             CHARACTER.TIME := Time.Elapsed             CHARACTER.Y += 1             Draw.Dot (CHARACTER.X, CHARACTER.Y, black)             View.Update         end if         if KEY (KEY_UP_ARROW) and CHARACTER.TIME - CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE >= 0 then             TIMER (2)         end if         if KEY (KEY_DOWN_ARROW) and CHARACTER.TIME - CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE <= 0 then             CHARACTER.TIME := Time.Elapsed             CHARACTER.Y -= 1             Draw.Dot (CHARACTER.X, CHARACTER.Y, black)             View.Update         end if         if KEY (KEY_DOWN_ARROW) and CHARACTER.TIME - CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE >= 0 then             TIMER (2)         end if         if KEY (KEY_ENTER) and CHARACTER.TIME - CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE <= 0 then             CHARACTER.TIME := Time.Elapsed             new BULLET, upper (BULLET) + 1             BULLET (upper (BULLET)).X := CHARACTER.X             BULLET (upper (BULLET)).Y := CHARACTER.Y             exit         end if         if KEY (KEY_ENTER) and CHARACTER.TIME - CHARACTER.TIMEUPDATE >= 0 then             TIMER (1)         end if     end loop     loop         CHARACTER.TIME := Time.Elapsed         cls         Pic.Draw (Arrow, BULLET (upper (BULLET)).X, BULLET (upper (BULLET)).Y, picMerge)         View.Update         if BULLET (upper (BULLET)).X >= maxx then             new BULLET, (upper (BULLET)) - 1             exit         else             BULLET (upper (BULLET)).X += Velocity         end if     end loop end loop

In this rough draft, I have demonstrated how my Timers will work.

I have setup 2 records for my CHARACTER (TIME and TIMEUPDATE), these 2 are used to calculate whether or not you as the player have exceeded the
delay or you are still waiting. By having a timer started when you press a key, there will be an if statement to check if TIME is greater then TIMEUPDATE + 1000.

Lost? Well, when you update your time you will never return to 0 so here's how it works, every time you reached your delay, TIMEUPDATE will be assigned TIME's value so that the timer can be used when numbers get higher then 1000.

Feel free to suggest any ways possible to get this smaller then it already is.

[andrew.]

I didn't really read over your code thoroughly, but could you just do something like:

Turing:

loop     if Time.Elapsed mod 10 = 0 then         % Your code     end if end loop

That would be a 10 ms delay because your code would run every 10 ms.

[DemonWasp]

@andrew: Not necessarily, as that isn't guaranteed to be run every millisecond. Even if it was, Time.Elapsed has some error margins in its return.

@TJ: I ran that and didn't see anything (and yes, I did replace the image path with one that exists). What am I supposed to see?

In either case, the usual way of doing this kind of thing is to loop, determine how long it's been since you last dealt with input from a given player, and use that "interpolation" time to determine how much they've moved (or whatever else) since you last checked.

[tjmoore1993]

DemonWasp @ Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:57 am wrote:

@andrew: Not necessarily, as that isn't guaranteed to be run every millisecond. Even if it was, Time.Elapsed has some error margins in its return.

@TJ: I ran that and didn't see anything (and yes, I did replace the image path with one that exists). What am I supposed to see?

In either case, the usual way of doing this kind of thing is to loop, determine how long it's been since you last dealt with input from a given player, and use that "interpolation" time to determine how much they've moved (or whatever else) since you last checked.

The image was a bullet (arrow)... I am making another version of Fantastic Story, this one will include the job Pirate. The pirate is able to shoot rapid fire. So far, the AI for it is comming along, I am trying to figure out though how to make it so that monsters have their own characteristics efficiently.

[DemonWasp]

For having multiple units that share a common set of characteristics (all basic orcs / kobolds / trolls have the same stats...), I would use a design like this:

Class 1 is MonsterDefinition, and it contains anything that you would find in a monster entry in a book. Does not contain its location or current status.

Class 2 is Monster, which contains a reference (not a copy!) of its MonsterDefinition, as well as its location, current status, and AI state.

Then, just keep a small library of MonsterDefinitions and you skip duplicating all that information.

Beyond that, I don't know what you mean by "efficiently".

[andrew.]

DemonWasp @ Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:57 am wrote:

@andrew: Not necessarily, as that isn't guaranteed to be run every millisecond. Even if it was, Time.Elapsed has some error margins in its return.

You could make it so it's in the range like this:

Turing:

if Time.Elapsed mod 10 > 8 or Time.Elapsed mod 10 < 2 then    % blah blah blah end if

That way it goes +/- 2.

But I agree, Time.Elapsed is inaccurate and it still may not work. It's just a simple and quick way of doing it. Also, if you are looking to be accurate and precise in your timing and stuff, why would you use Turing? Use a better language.

[corriep]

I think what you are going after is Time.DelaySinceLast (10), it will give a 10 second delay from to last time it was called. ie if your calculations take 3 ms it will only delay 7 ms, if your calculations took 15 ms it will delay 0 ms.

I could be totally wrong though

[copthesaint]

Lets make this very simple.

Turing:

var Timer : array 1 .. 2 of int loop     Timer (1) := Time.ElapsedCPU     /*Your code*/     loop         Timer (2) := Time.ElapsedCPU         exit when Timer (2) >= Timer (1) + 10     end loop end loop

[/syntax]

[andrew.]

copthesaint @ Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:27 am wrote:

Lets make this very simple.

Turing:

var Timer : array 1 .. 2 of int loop     Timer (1) := Time.ElapsedCPU     /*Your code*/     loop         Timer (2) := Time.ElapsedCPU         exit when Timer (2) >= Timer (1) + 10     end loop end loop

That's prety much what I meant by my code although mine was simpler and not as good