Is there an easy, direct way to make several frames use the same set of events?

[Dalal]

Let's say I need frames 1 - 100 to use a set of events 'A' and only 'A', and I need frames 101 - 200 to use a set of events 'B' and only 'B'. 'A' and 'B' contain conflicting events so at first glance, global events do not appear to be a viable option. On the other hand, if I manually copy the common events to every frame that uses them, each time I make changes to a set of events, I'll be forced to copy them across all hundred frames that use that set, an approach that is prone to error and obviously very inefficient.

So far, I believe I have found one solution to the problem, but it seems like a lot of mess for functionality that I believe should be a lot simpler. My solution is to have several groups under Global Events, each corresponding to a set of events (ex. Event Set 1, Event Set 2), and a set of Global Variables, where each variable acts as a Boolean corresponding to a set of events (ex. TurnOnSet1, TurnOnSet2). In the Global Events, if TurnOnSet'X' is 1, then activate Event Set 'X'. Then, in each frame that uses Event Set 'X', ensure that the TurnOnSet'X' is the only event-set variable set to 1. A little hackish. And no, it doesn't seem like you can activate/deactivate global groups from a frame's events, which could have made it a little less messy. I hope there is a solution that I may have overlooked, and someone here can explain it to me.

Is there an easier way?

Thanks,

Dalal

[Eliyahu]

Sounds like you should only being using 2 frames but loading whatever you need externally. If you have over 100 frames you should probably rethink how you're going about this.

[Dalal]

I appreciate your response. While the 100+ frames was merely an example to demonstrate the issue of copying events from frame to frame, I still don't believe one would need to necessarily rethink a 100+ frame structure. Consider the fact that each frame of a massive commercial release (perhaps an RPG containing a normal world with base events, and also containing many standard mini games with base events) could potentially contain very different dynamic environments and custom events, none of which could possibly be stored in a file and loaded dynamically as you suggested. Yet, each of these frames would require the same set of base events. It is easy to see why a need such as this would arise. To make it clear, I have not started developing a game yet, but I want to fully explore the capabilities of MMF 2 before I decide to purchase the developer version.

I take it there is no default mechanism built into Multimedia Fusion to handle this issue, which is fine, but perhaps it could be a feature built into Multimedia Fusion 3. I was comparing MMF to other similar products (which could become big competitors soon along the way), one of which contains event sheets, where you can create event sheets, and then attach event sheets to 'frames' - a much more flexible approach to event-based programming than what currently exists in MMF. Hopefully the next version of MMF will consider an 'event-sheet' approach.

[DaveC]

commercial games aren't generally made up of seperate frames, no matter how different the enviroments are.

it's simply a matter of loading the data into the frame and then activating a group, say activate environment 1+base code and deactivate all other environments.

[Corlen]

You could use global events and put the events for frames 1-100 in a group and events for frames 101-200 in another group and deactivate and activate the groups based on the number of the current frame.

[Dalal]

DaveC, you may be right. It just seemed like you'd have to impose a very rigid structure on your levels if they are to be dynamically loaded. But perhaps that simply depends on how elaborately you design your loading system.

Corlen, hey that's a great solution, thanks!