DMD system - unlocked script

highrise

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Hi guys

After putting a lot of work into the DMD scripting in the last few days, I got to thinking about why I was doing it. It's my humble attempt to give back something to the VP community in the form of a DMD that can be used by any intermediate table builder. In this sense, the people who might want to use it are going to want not only to see the code, but to tinker with it as well.
So I figured. it's no good to me at all if noone wants to use it, and since I have at least got it to a point where some of it at least is reasonably tidy and comprehensible, I've decide to release some of the code as open source for anyone that wants to have a play around with, debug, and try and put into actual tables.

This release covers the text / score display stuff only, it doesn't include the sprite related stuff since this still needs too much work doing to it. But if someone has a nice table that they put this code into, I will be willing to help them to develop minigames and such like.

There are definite errors with this code that I haven't worked out yet. Solving them should be a tricky problem for anyone. Basically the right alignment doesn't work properly, and neither does the positioning of the text when using smaller fonts. I will come back to the problem later, and if anyone wants to try and solve it, I am of course happy to help.

If, having seen the code, you'd like to help me develop this further, then do let me know. I figure it's more important to have something interesting that people can use out there than keeping it to myself until it's fully complete. You guys all have way more experience with VP than I have anyway, so hopefully it will result in something useful. I still think it has the potential to enhance original tables quite considerably.

Anyway, all I ask is that you let me know before you put it into a table that will be released. If it is not working properly, please don't compain - as I said, this release is not intended for public use just yet.

Finally, I just want to thank Destruk for his advice on this. The development community is getting pretty small these days, so co-operation is the most important thing.
enjoy!
 

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  • 2x2dmdscorerelease.zip
    26.2 KB · Views: 266
Some other notes, if you want to try and move it into a table.

moving the DMD into another table:

To do this, you will need to move all 300 EMReels that make up the DMD. You can use copy and paste, but you will have to re-organise the collections carefully since VP does not paste the objects in the order you might hope it does.

The names of the EMreels don't matter, but to work properly, they do need to go into a set of ten collections, named DMD01,DMD02,DMD03 to DMD10.

Each collection holds one column of 30 EMreels. They are laid out like so:


DMD01 DMD02 DMD03
:000::030:::060
:001::031:::061
:002::032:::062
:003::033:::063
:004::034:::064
:005::035:: etc
:006::036::
:007::037::
:008::038::
:009::039::
:010::040::
:011::041::
:012::042::
:013::043::
:014::044::
:015::045::
:016::046::
:017::047::
:018::048::
:019::049::
:020::050::
:021::051::
:022::052::
:023::053::
:024::054::
:025::055::
:026::056::
:027::057::
:028::058::
:029::059::

so each collection has to have 30 EMreels, running in order down the DMD, across the columns. Collection DMD01 holds reels 0 to 29, Collection DMD02 holds 30 to 59 and so on.

It is advisable not to move any of the individual EMreels manually as they are set quite carefully. I recommend that instead you highlight a particular column or row of the DMD and move that by adjusting either the Y value if it is a row, or the x value if it is a column. This way you can maintain the layout reasonably well, because you can move it in chunks of ten or thirty. Of course, you can move the entire DMD manually if you highlight everything.

For reference, the EMreels are 3 units apart vertically, and 28 units apart horizontally. This may need to be adjusted according to your preferred resolution.

Once you've done this, you just need to move the relevant parts of the script, taking care that no variables are duplicated.

You can change the colours of the DMD using the images provided. I have attached them in a zip.
 

Attachments

  • colours.zip
    1,008 bytes · Views: 279
Thanks highrise!
I really believe this should be added to the VP Tutorials and Support Files download section..

:rockband:
 
well, I don't mind writing a proper tutorial, but I'd like to see if a few people will actually use it first...
 
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