MODULE: Easy mirrors 2.0

[Monsieur OUXX]

IMPORTANT NOTE :
- This module was created before late_repeatedly_execute_always was introduced
- If you replace repeatedly_execute_always with late_repeatedly_execute_always it should procude better results (no latency in character frame mirrored)

This allows you to create small mirrors in your game very quickly.

FEATURES:
- three types of symmetry: front/back (the mirror is facing you), left/right (the mirror is turned 90° from your viewpoint), none (the character is repalced with any character of your choosing, allowing upside-down symmetry of any crazy idea you have).
- you can choose the opacity of the mirror: 0.0 means it reflects perfectly. 1.0 means it doesn't reflect anything.
- Custom-shaped mirrors : just pick a sprite as a mask and your mirror can have any shape. It also uses alpha (you can have cracks in your mirrors, a soft outline, etc.).
- Attenuation: when the player moves away from the mirror, his reflection becomes less and less visible.
- Moving reflection : you can make the character's reflection move around to simulate a moving mirror (water surface, etc.)
HOW TO USE
- See the demo game and the header script. It's as simple as possible : choose an object as the mirror, another object as its symmetry center, and a region to trigger it on or off when the player walks on it.

KNOWN ISSUES
- [version 1.x only] [It's quite slow. It's meant for small mirrors. I'd say no more than 200x100 pixels reflecting simultaneously.
- [version 1.x only] There are tiny rendering bugs (sometimes the mirrored image is late one frame, or sometimes it's not aligned properly -- but the player won't really notice). Those will be fixed in next version.
- It only reflects the player character. It doesn't reflect any object or animated background or anything else. But it's easy to tweak the module and make it reflect one or several NPCs.

HISTORY
- 2013: uploaded version 1.x which work with per-pixel computation (allows shaders)
- 31 july 2014 : uploaded version 2.0 which drops the whole per-pixel thing and uses standard AGS characters as the reflection.

>>> DOWNLOAD 1.1 (obsolete, per-pixel computation) <<< (sources + compiled demo game)
>>> DOWNLOAD 2.0 (faster, more reliable) <<< (sources + compiled demo game)

Also you might like the private jokes for point-n-click lovers in the demo


==================

UPDATE: You know the way you always learn new things in AGS scripts?
Well, you'll notice that my module uses the following silly technique to get sprites Width and Height :

Code: ags

      //not the actual code in the module
      DynamicSprite* s sprite= DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(something.Graphic);
      int width=s.Width;
      int height=s.Height;

Well, feel free to replace it with this, which will be much faster and memory-savy:

Code: ags

      width = Game.SpriteWidth[something.Graphic];
      height = Game.SpriteHeight[something.Graphic];

[kaput]

Nice work, sounds great!

[Kitai]

Seems like an amazing job! Not tested it yet, but I had to implement a mirror too in an AGS game and never figured out how I could make a module with it. So I'm pretty impressed by the customizable and yet user-friendly aspects of this module.

But where is the mirror on the screenshot you posted? Is it the golden stone? If so, what does it reflect?

[Ghost]

But where is the mirror on the screenshot you posted? Is it the golden stone? If so, what does it reflect?

The golden nugget, a section of the icy wall and the icy ground all reflect; in the screenshot this doesn't show though- but it looks beautiful in action.

Well done, Monsieur; I never thought I'd need mirrors. Now I will put them everywhere!

[Monsieur OUXX]

But where is the mirror on the screenshot you posted? Is it the golden stone? If so, what does it reflect?

Just run the demo already!
There are 5 mirrors, just not on the screnshot (yes, I know, that's silly)

Well done, Monsieur; I never thought I'd need mirrors. Now I will put them everywhere!

Thanks!

[Gribbler]

I always avoided rooms with potential mirrors while game designing. Now I don't have to. Thanks so much!

[Wicked]

That looks absolutly amazing I was gonna have to figure out how to make some mirrors for my game but wow this is awsome , I wonder if it works well with animated background or water

[Adeel]

    This is really handy, Monsieur. Played your demo. Loved the reference . Now I can implement it my game.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Yes that was definitely a bad screenshot if you wanted to display what this module does. I recommend changing it.

As for the demo game, that was pretty impressive. What is the scanlines.txt for, and with that question, why do you output it as a txt with raw ints instead of a binary file? That way the player is not wondering what this text file is and if they should read it.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I recommend changing the screenshot.

Updated screenshot :

What is the scanlines.txt for, and with that question, why do you output it as a txt with raw ints instead of a binary file? That way the player is not wondering what this text file is and if they should read it.

Wooops! That was meant for debugging only! Now I understand why the demo game suddenly got so slow!
It's just a matter of commenting out the line calling the function dumping of the text file.

I wonder if it works well with animated background or water

It's not compatible with animated backgrounds. Animated backgrounds are evil anyway!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Bumping to remind Iceboty to move this to the modules forum.

[Gilbert]

Oh it wasn't? It is NAO.

[EliasFrost]

The download link is broken Think you can fix it please?

[selmiak]

maybe someone moved stuff around on the dropbox?
try this link instead pls.

[EliasFrost]

Thanks

[Monsieur OUXX]

Uploaded version 2.0 (see first post for downloading the demo game)

Gets rid of most issues, especially it's much faster (even though less flexible) since it drops the whole per-pixel computation approach.

[imgzoom]http://33.media.tumblr.com/49776a07d6c33839e4b33cb35d89266a/tumblr_n9lcs53I9P1tsfksfo1_1280.png[/imgzoom]

[Cassiebsg]

Hey! Great module! Don't currently have any mirrors planned, but it's nice to have the option.

BTW, how do I get to the Ice Cave? Whenever I click on the arrow that says "Go to ice cave", I just get the harbor.
Only changed from 3x to 2x in winsetup.

[Ghost]

Whenever I click on the arrow that says "Go to ice cave", I just get the harbor.

You can debug into that room- Indy then states that it is unused and has no mirrors, so you are not missing out on anything

Love the update, Monsieur! All those tiny extras are great to have (tints et al); in my opinion this should be included into the AGS download. It may not be used THAT often, but whenever someone needs a mirror the module covers it

[Monsieur OUXX]

Fixed the "to ice cave" thing and updated the download link. But as Ghost stated, there is nothing in that room, it's just there for legacy from version 1.X (it's a pretty room ;-) )

[Mehrdad]

I see a little bug:

[Cassiebsg]

I see a little bug:

Now that you mentioned it, I noticed that one when I was moving around, but then I couldn't reproduce it, and thought that maybe it was me who saw it wrong...

[Ghost]

I see a little bug:

Now that you mentioned it, I noticed that one when I was moving around, but then I couldn't reproduce it, and thought that maybe it was me who saw it wrong...

Could be a not-correctly-assigned view though. I set up a mirror scene in a Game-in-production, and didn't get that bug with fully assigned views. In the "ocean" scene it is stated that some views are "lazily assigned".

[AnasAbdin]

I see a little bug:

I don't think so. With all the dangers around.. he grew a pair of eyes in the back of his head...

I'll see my way out.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Hey guys, it's not a bug*.

As explained in the demo game (when you click on Brandon to get his explanations) :

"You might notice that sometimes, the reflection does not match the character sprite. That's not because of the module. That's because our sprite artist was too lazy to draw an original sprite 0 for some loops".

In the screenshot above, all sprites 0 for loops "up,down,left and right" of view "idle" are the same. Hence the glitch! But then again it's not because of the module.

* unless proven otherwise.

[Orca]

Would it be ok to use this module in my commercial game? I dont see any licensing documentation for your module.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Would it be ok to use this module in my commercial game? I dont see any licensing documentation for your module.

I believe the files headers say it's absolutely free to use.
But anyway: yes, you may use it, as long as you credit "Monsieur Ouxx and the 'Indiana Jones and the Seven Cities of Gold' contributors" somewhere in your manual or on-screen crédits.

[Orca]

no probs, ill make sure that i credit you and Indiana Jones and the Seven Cities of Gold' contributors in the credits and in the game readme/manual docs.

[Alen101]

It seems to be a cool module, but it gives me an arror in this line:
   LabelDebug.Text = String.Format("transp=%d", c.Transparency);
Any ideas of what could be happening?

Ive downloaded the zip file with the Indy game, then enter the game and export the module Mirror2.0
Then go to my game and import it, i did that because i was not able to find the .scm file.
Maybe some archive in the indy game folder i have to copy to my game folder?

[Alen101]

I keep getting this error in the mirror module, any ideas?
anything would help!

The error is in this line of the mirror2.0.asc code:

Code: ags

LabelDebug.Text = String.Format("transp=%d", c.Transparency);

this is the output message:

mirror2.0.asc(461): Error (line 461): Undefined token 'LabelDebug'

[Calin Leafshade]

It's trying to set a label for debugging. Presumably the module author left it in by mistake.

Just remove that line.

[Alen101]

Thank you!!

[eri0o]

I have the error:

Failed to save room room1.crm; details below
guiscript.ash(145): Error (line 145): function 'Character::FaceDirection' is already defined


And in line 145, I see the following code:

Code: ags

    import function FaceDirection (this Character*, eDirection dir);

--- EDIT ---

Ok, I deleted FaceDirection definition from both guiscript.asc and guiscript.ash . Now it works! :]


--- EDIT 2 ---

Does someone have any idea on how to have eSymmetryHoriz that also flips horizontally the image? My character isn't horizontally symmetric.

Made my own small hack for now...

Code: ags

Character* c; //the reflection will be...
  if (data[mir_index].c != null) { //...the mirror's own. It looks exactly like the player
    c = data[mir_index].c;
    if(player.View != 1){
      c.ChangeView(player.View);
    } else {
      c.ChangeView(49);
    }
  }

[Monsieur OUXX]

Update : edited first post to recommend using late_repeatedly_execute_always

[Loslem]

Hey OUXX

You stated it would be easy to mirror more characters...
What would one have to do, to make that work?

[croquetasesina]

The links doesn't work!

[Monsieur OUXX]

As per request, I've updated the download link, it's now repaired.

I have the error:
function 'Character::FaceDirection' is already defined

That's because this module was written before AGS finally included a built-in FaceDirection function. Therefore, the module has its own function with the same name, and also defines its own Directions enum. Just rename the module's FaceDirection function (to FaceDirection2 or whatever) or call AGS' native function instead.

Also don't forget that for optimal results you should now put the module's main loop in late_repeatedly_execute_always, otherwise you character's mirror reflection could be one frame late.

[Matti]

Could you update the link again?

[Monsieur OUXX]

Done. I would recommend doing a slight modification and use repeatedly_execute_late to make the reflection's frame always perfectly in sync with the character's frame.

[Crimson Wizard]

Done. I would recommend doing a slight modification and use repeatedly_execute_late to make the reflection's frame always perfectly in sync with the character's frame.

it's late_repeatedly_execute_always .