Sunday, October 7, 2007

New stuff

Alright, I have looked intently through my new Java book, and have come up with some new stuff to try to implement. The code is going to be rewritten from scratch, hopefully a little more smoothly than it was last time (an impressive feat, since the last recode went so much better than I ever could have hoped for).

In this recode, I am going to try to take some of the strain off of the GUI aspect of the program. Remember from last time, when I said my last attempt to take the pressure off the GUI was unsuccessful? Well, I think I found at least one of the ares where I messed up, and I know how to fix it in part. The rest I'll fix on the fly.

So, the things that I will cover: I am going to make it so that only the image visible in the screen is drawn. I am also going to do away with the collision array maps. This time, the collisions will get their values from an actual map feature, in which one set of variables of type A can be paired up with a variable from type B. This means that an Image file (the sprite) can be paired with a boolean, dictating whether or not I can walk across.

I think what will end up happening is that I will have two sprite two dimensional arrays for the entire board. One will include the background sprites, like the ground, and what type of terrain is there. The other will lay out things like buildings, and rocks, and people. This will be the array checked by the map.

Unfortunately, as I type, things are falling apart in my head. I cannot quite figure out how some things are going to work. Dammit, I'll just start coding right now, and hopefully, I will be able to figure them out on the fly. Later, people.