Shadowdarke's BYOND website

New light on an old library

Tue, 27 May 2008 16:56:13 GMT

I've finally updated sd_DynamicAreaLighting to take advantage of alpha transparency, but it's actually much more interesting than a simple icon change. You can now use your own custom darkness icon for the overlays.

The coolest part is that you can decide exactly how many shades of darkness there are in sd_DAL version 10. The old sd_DAL had 4 basic shades of darkness. Now you can increase or even decrease that number to match your custom icons.

Compile the library in BYOND 4.0 or greater to play a demo with the new features. You can change the darkness icon between several demo icons using the "dark icon" verb.

For those of you who absolutely refuse to update to BYOND 4.0, don't worry. You can still use custom icons and shade counts without being forced to use BYOND 4.0 and transparent icons. The demo even compiles in older BYOND versions and shows developers how to selectively compile code based on compiler version.

Hope you all enjoy it!

HELP! Need testers for an IE javascript error

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:52:35 GMT

One of the long standing errors in Darke Dungeon that has probably cost me a great many players is a javascript error on the Appearance Page of Character Generation. The reason I have so much trouble with it, is that it works perfectly on every single computer I have access to. Many of the people experiencing trouble even have the same OS and browser configuration I do, so I haven't a clue what the trouble is. If I can't reproduce it, it's hard to fix it.

That's why I come here pleading for testers. Anyone willing to help, especially people who have experienced script errors at character creation in Darke Dungeon, please try these pages using Internet Explorer. Since BYOND currently only supports IE, I haven't even begun to make Mozilla or other browser versions.

http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/ dhtml/overview/filt_14.htm is the Microsoft demo of the filter I'm using. Everyone should have no problem getting it to work.

http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/dd/test/old_method.htm uses the old method and should produce the same errors that you experience in Darke Dungeon, if you get them.

http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/dd/test/index.html is the revision and I'm hoping it corrects the script errors.

http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/dd/test/i2.html is another possible fix.

Please try each version and post your results!

All visible sections of the interface should work without errors.

Click or drag the 3 sliders on the color bars to adjust the colors of the icon on the left.

Click "Skin", "Eyes", and "Hair" to select which part to adjust.

Click the 1x, 2x, or 4x buttons to change the preview's zoom factor.

Click the hairstyles under "Hair Options" to change style.

Thanks for the help. :)

Time for the next batch of open libraries

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:10:19 GMT

Several of my libraries have been BYONDscape exclusives for years now. I've decided to set them free. :)

These libraries are now full access for anyone:

sd_DynamicAreaLighting: Fast and easy dynamic lighting. (Needs some serious work for BYOND 4.0. The changes to view() have been a real problem.)
sd_tree: Navigate lists of datums through a collapsable tree view.
PixelProjectiles: Pixel based directional projectiles

Darke Dungeon in Game Tutorial

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:55:23 GMT

I love blogging, can't you tell?

I'm looking for opinions on improving the tutorial in Darke Dungeon. I welcome your discussion at http://shadowdarke.byondhome.com/forum/ forum.cgi?action=message_read&id=3288&forum=4. :)

Darke Dungeon Deadline Dilemma

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:04:37 GMT

The time has come. Darke Dungeon is due tomorrow. People following the DD news page already know that I had some delays this month because my Mom had a heart attack. Now I have a choice to make. Do I release what I have, or let the deadline slip. I'm not real happy with either choice. Releasing now means that people will be playing it when it's less than its best. Even if I make it better in the future, most people will judge it by their first impression. On the other hand, I consider the deadline to be a promise to the fans and I take my promises seriously.

This release is for the fans, and I would like to have their opinions on the matter. I'll leave the comments open for non-members and members alike. Tomorrow at 10:00pm Eastern, I'll tally the votes. Should I release it tomorrow, in a week, or take another month or more?

What's the Difference?

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:47:42 GMT

Anyone who works on a project on more than one computer has run into a situation where they accidently modified an old obsolete version of their code.

I did that this morning with Darke Dungeon, doing a couple hours work and then remembering that I hadn't extracted the zip file containing my latest updates. With over 30,000 lines of code in 88 files across multiple subfolders, I didn't look forward to checking the modification dates and doing a line by line comparison of the touched files. I wished I had a CVS repository for the thing.

Thank the higher power(s) of your choice for Google. After a page or so of mediocre crippleware I found a real gem in Compare and Merge. It will examine your folders to find which text files have differences. Then you can examine the files side by side with synchronized scroll windows and a color coded bar showing you where the differences are and copy/delete/edit the content of each file. A single drag and drop (or select and click) will transfer changes from one file to the other. It is a truly marvelous piece of shareware with a generous 50 comparisons before you have to register. Frankly if you need to use it more than 50 times, I think you'll find it well worth the price. (I used 10 of my 50 freebies on the Darke Dungeon problem this morning.)

For those of you who don't believe anything is worth the price unless it's free, I also found DiffDaff. This freeware does all the comparisons and difference highlighting with side by side comparisons that Compare and Merge does, but you can't edit the files from within DiffDaff and it doesn't have that oh-so-handy color bar showing you where the diffs are. It's great for freeware (and far better than most of the crippleware I went through before finding it) but those two missing features make Compare and Merge my personal preference.

I welcome reviews of similar packages. I'd love to see if there is anything better than Compare and Merge before I buy the package.

sd_procs update: base 64 encoding and nybble colors

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 07:58:41 GMT

I've just updated sd_procs with a handful of procs for converting between text, hexidecimal text and base 64 encoded text. Base 64 encoding is the format that BYOND uses when writing a binary file as text with the ExportText() proc.

I first became interested in base 64 encoding for decrypting dmi files in BYOND. (That project is still on a back burner.) Thanks to wikipedia's documentation of the format, I made a base 64 to hex converter in DM.

Today I was working with Mike H's RC5 library and wondering how to minimize the bloating of the encoded string. Once I realized that his library was returning a hex string, it all clicked into place. I can cut the string length by 1/3 if I convert it to base 64. It's still 25% larger than the original string, but it is quite an improvement and URL safe. Well... I thought it was significant! :)

The nybble colors have been in sd_procs for a while, but I didn't give them a proper introduction when I made the update back in April. These procs convert between a 3 or 6 character RGB hexidecimal code and a 4 bit (aka nybble) color code. Obviously there is quite a bit of detail lost in the conversion, but it's great if you have to store a lot of approximated color info in as small a space as possible. I use it for the colored text maps in Darke Dungeon.

My spin on SET

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:03:54 GMT

I've been playing with AbyssDragon's (A.K.A. nick.cash) SET library the past couple days. I've optimized it a little and made it easier to expand. Check it out at http://developer.byond.com/hub/Shadowdarke/SET_Mod :)

Thanks Nick! Without SET, I would probably never have had the time or patience to work on an expression evaluation library.

Darke Dungeon will be up 9-9-06

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:50:49 GMT

It's been too long since DD was hosted. I'll be hosting from 8:00 am EST to at least 2:00 pm EST. I'll host longer if I can.

Spread the word to all the other fans. :)

Darke Dungeon deadline

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 11:51:58 GMT

Darke Dungeon has become a very rich and complex game far beyond what I had initially envisioned ages ago when I began the project. I'm very happy with the way it's turning out, but there is one thing I am extremely disappointed in. With all the feature creep, it's taken over 5 years for me to release this project. No one can enjoy it unless I take a notion to host, and that's not fair to the fans.

I hate deadlines, but without one Darke Dungeon will be in "alpha" stage forever. Today I give myself a deadline. Darke Dungeon will be available for download before Christmas Eve 2006. That gives me nearly six months to polish existing features. After release, I will continue to upgrade and refine the game. Most importantly, the gamers will have access to it and other people will be able to set up their own servers with unique items and creatures.