Importing tiles

[elcalen]

Hi,

I've been looking at BasiEgaXorz (that's one heck of a name, how did you ever come up with it? ), and it looks quite cool ... However, there's some points I'm wondering about...

To make a decent game, I'd have to import graphics somehow... however, there's very little documentation on the DataFile command, and it's very confusing... Would it be possible to get an example of how to import tiles using a datafile? (Some kind of support for music would be awesome as well, but I guess that might be too much to ask ;D)

I guess I could easily make a better looking and sounding game with QBasic, or some other language, but there's just something about this that attracts me... LOL ;D

[Elcalen]

Hmm... Seems to be a quiet forum... ;D

Well, I probably won't have time to code any Sega games in the near future anyway... But I'll be sure to keep an eye on the project. Keep up the good work... If you could add an example program of what I talked about above to the next release, that would be good...

[oompa loompa]

sorry for the delay i was too busy busting up crime this weekend

the datafile command is the same as any other data command, except the data is located on some external file. the file can either be in text or binary. for text data files, they have the format of:

dc.b data stuff (eg: $01,$02, 1 byte long)
dc.w daata stuff (2 bytes long)
dc.l data stuff (4 bytes long)

binary files are binary files, they are inserted into the assembled source exactly as it appears in the file (like you gotta hex edit, or convert your tiles to use this). to specify a binary file, you need to add the prefix of ,BIN to the end of the statement. an example datafile command would be:

datafile smiley.bin,BIN
datafile whatever.txt

the file has to be placed in the directory of where you last saved your source code. the directory setup of the datafile command is messed up, this will be fixed in 0.09. (that's what i need testers for =P)

i'll expand more on the datafile command. say you have this line in your basic program datalong $10101010. Now, using the datafile command, the equivalent of the above statement would be datafile whatever.txt, where the text file includes the line dc.l $10101010.

hope that helps =)

[elcalen]

Hmm... yeah, I think I get it... It was mainly the format of the file, and the data in the file, that I was confused about... I just don't have the time to test it right now, though... In order to import graphics from another source, I guess I would have to write some kind of converter... Should be possible...

Have you got any plans for an image to 'BEX compatible format' converter? Something like that would make game developer's lives easier...

[Tom Maneiro]

Check this demo (source included)

mipagina.cantv.net/tomman/temp/togepi.7z

It loads tiles from a external BIN file, loads a pallette through code, and then draws a picture.

if you want to import your own pics, get Kaneda's Bmp 2 Tile at www.chez.com/kaneda/index.php?page=genesis .
This tool will allow you to convert your (16 colors) BMP's to Genesis tiles/sprites. You can convert it to ASM or to a binfile plus an ASM. If you select the first choice, the "picture" sources may be HUGE (at least 6000 lines of code for my demo, that took almost 7 mins to compile with BasiEgaXorz). If you select BIN, you will get the pic converted in a bin file, plus ASM sources with the pallete. I prefer this way, since i need to use only 10 lines of code instead of 6285...

Anyway, good luck!

[oompa loompa]

in the next version i'm releasing the sgtd tile editor that goes with basiegaxorz. i could also make a gif to tile converter, maybe in some other version depending on the need.

when you use 6000 lines of code inside the basic source, hell yes its going to take 7 mins. that's b/c whatever's in the source code, the compiler parses. when the compiler parses things, better expect it to take its time. when you include your data as a binary, or assembly data file, the assembler parses that junk, so it'd go frickin 2 fast 2 furious