Plan for Rob "Scar" Parton

SQLite, Map Transitions and Sunburns, oh my!

Well, it took a while but I officially have a sunburn. Yesterday when I was soaking up some rays, I started thinking again about map transitions. I've couple different setups here and there on the forums, but I kept thinking back to my last real hobby: Neverwinter Nights. Man, I miss that game.

Anyway, where was I?

I successfully got SQLite thrown into Torque this morning. I'm using it for a number of things, such as base item types, actual monster data, monster combat formations, that sort of thing. So, after thinking about the transition issues I was having earlier, I came up with a simple solution. A new trigger "AreaTransitionTrigger", that contains the information for the transition. However, it's just an ID into the AreaTransition table in the database. The database contains all the information for the actual transition (the Name, the map file, the destination spawn, the image to show on the load screen, the description and the name on the load screen)

I added everything to the database for a specific reason. I was starting to think about what would happen during a storyline where different things would happen depending on the direction you came from. So if you have a series of maps like the following...

Hills <--> Swamp <--> Forest

You can define a specific image to show when loading the swamp map when coming from the hills, opposed to from the forest. I can also add hints depending on which way you're coming from that are shown in the load screen.

Another example is when you have something like:

Cave <--> Field <--> Mountain Path

This way, I can have an image of the character exiting a cave (a bright light coming out of the mouth of the cave?) and also another image of coming down the mountain path towards the field.

It's the little things, really.

On top of this, I'm going to be adding a new gui box specifically for the transition trigger, which creates a new row in the transition table for the data supplied in the box. This way I can work on the system live without having to tab and and forth out of the window into the database browser.

Another bonus is I found Delphi bindings for SQLite, so now I can make all my editors in that (for all the other data), since I work so much faster in Delphi than i do in TorqueScript/C++.

Score!

This would all be even better if my skin wasn't being stripped off my flesh.