Backdrop wrap when image size differs from frame

[Kaiseto]

I'm very new to MMF2. I've been plugging away at it for a few days, figuring things out here and there. Right now I'm trying to get backgrounds working for parallaxing.

I have my backdrop image set on the lowest layer, and set it to wrap. The image is 640x480. When the frames is the same size, the wrap works perfectly. However, when I set the frame to be any size larger than that (which will be necessary when I get around to making the actual gameplay) there is a large gap (exactly the size of the difference between the image and the frame) between the image when it wraps back around.



You can see the image in the frame back there, and the gap in the running application.

Is there some way to make the image always loop back on itself seamlessly regardless of the size of the frame?

[xyzzy]

have you tried messing with the frame's virtual width/height settings?

i've never used those so i'm not sure if they'll work or not

[Kaiseto]

I've messed with it a little, and gotten no positive results. If I shrink the virtual frame size down to the size of the image, I won't be able to walk past the length of the image, I think.

[Yves]

Well, it works this way, you have to fill the entire frame with graphics, that sounds logical : if a part of your frame is blank, then there will be a gap when it wraps. Unless I've misunderstood something in your post.

[Benicle]

Yeah you'll see the gap in the frame editor is the same as the runtime gap. If you just make your frame width a multiple of the backdrop's width and make it the same width as the frame then it'll work. Very nice art by the way, I've been looking for an artist for ages now - if you catch my drift.

[Kaiseto]

Alright, I think I see what you're saying. If I wanted the level itself to be shorter than the frame, would I just have to decrease the Virtual Width?

[Yves]

You can try, but I'm not sure if it's possible. Let us know.

[Kaiseto]

Woohoo. It most certainly works.

I made the frame 1280 x 480 (twice the length of the picture) and put in two backdrops touching each other as my layer 1. Then I set the Virtual Width to 1000.

It stopped me before the edge of the map, but looping still worked perfectly.

[Olivier]

What is the total width of your 2 touching backdrops Kaiseto? I have yet to seriously experiment with virtual width/height, because I could never get my head around it. Despite I'm already using layers with various scrolling coefficients to do parallaxing.

Could someone explain the relation between virtual sizes and scrolling coefficients?

PS: Very nice and unique graphics Kaiseto.

[Kaiseto]

Each image is 640x480. The frame is 1280x480. Two images fill up the frame exactly.

If you set the virtual width to the same as the frame width, you'll be able to scroll all the way over to the end of the frame when playing. If you increase it, you'll be able to scroll PAST the boundaries of the frame.

But I wanted a level that was shorter than 1280 pixels, so I set my virtual width to 992 (a multiple of 32, to fit with the width of my tiles, though you can set it to anything). This means I can only scroll over 992 pixels of the screen. There's more frame beyond it, but you cant get to it (and I didn't put anything there for you to get to).

Scrolling coefficients are used for background layres, from what I can tell, to make them move at a different rate than the player. If you set the coefficient of X to 0.50000 on layer 1, and have your character and objects on layer 2 (with a normal coefficient of 1.00000), then the background will move half as fast as the player.

I think this is really used for parallax backgrounds. Lets say you have three background layers, each with an image that's supposed to be further away from the player. If you set the X Scrolling coefficient of layer 1 to .20000, set the coefficient of layer 2 to .50000, and the coefficient of 3 to .80000, you'll get an effect of depth where the backgrounds move slower the further they are away.

Sorry if that was long winded. Or wrong, for that matter. I just started using the program last week (got the full version in the mail yesterday). This is what I understand of it for the most part.