Scenes and Regions

The Scene item describes a scene, which consists of several regions for mouse interactions. A character is a special kind of region that represents the player and is moved by the mouse.

For more information on how to build a scene with regions and a character and to get the correct 3D-feeling from 2D images and regions see scene layout.

Scene

Item type	Scene
Description	The scene is the main place for the player to interact with the game.
Action	Makes this scene the current scene. If the scene is displayed from the inventory and it is already the current scene, the scene is closed and it is returned to the inventory. If the scene is the menu scene of the Game item, the menu scene is opened or closed again.
Condition	True, if the scene was already visited before. (The condition is set to true after the init action, so you can use it to test in the init action whether it is the first visit.)

Key	Type	Default	Description
description	string	""	A short description of the scene.
image	Images	""	The background image of the scene.
init	Actions	<>	The action to execute each time the scene is entered.
exit	Actions	<>	The action to execute each time the scene is left.
regions	[Regions]	[]	The initial list of regions of the scene.
background	colour	(-)	The background colour of the scene.
size	point	(0,0)	The Size of the scene; (0,0) means size of game.
offset	point	(0,0)	The offset (position) of the scene.
boundary	Shapes	<>	The boundary restricts the area to move for the character.
frontScale	int	100	Scaling factor (in percent) for character when positioned at the front (bottom) of the scene.
backScale	int	100	Scaling factor (in percent) for character when positioned at the back (top) of the scene.
perspective	int	60	Camera perspective (angle in degrees of field of view).

Region

Item type	Region
Description	A region is a part of a scene.
Action	Redraws the region, if it is part of the current scene.
Condition	-

Key	Type	Default	Description
description	string	""	A short description of the region.
position	point	(0,0)	The position of the region relativ to the upper left corner of the scene.
shape	Shapes	<>	The shape of the region.
image	Images	<>	The image of the region.
actions	[Action]	[]	The actions executed on a mouse click in the region.
init	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the cursor enters the region.
exit	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the cursor leaves the region.
press	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the mouse is pressed in the region or moved in again while pressed.
release	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the mouse is released in the region or moved out while pressed.
in	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the character enters the region.
out	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the character leaves the region.
distance	int	0	Distance of the shape/image to the ground.
boundary	Shapes	<>	Area excluded for character. (If none, shape/image is used.)
goto	[point]	[]	List of "attractors" for the character to approach (relative to center of boundary).

Note: A region should have at least one shape or image to determine whether the mouse is over the region or not. If both are given, the image is only displayed but does not influence the form of the region. If the image is a transparent image, the transparency of the image determines the form of the region, otherwise the form is a rectangle with the size of the image.

Note: The boundary is the projection of a region to the ground. Therefore, it excludes this area of the scene from the player character to walk. If there is a boundary and the player clicks on the region, the character will not walk to the point clicked in the scene. Instead, it will approach the projection on the ground, i.e. the center of the boundary. To direct the character to another point, the goto-points give explicit attractors to walk to. The character then approaches the nearest goto-point.

Note: The in/out-keys are relative to the shape of the region, not the boundary. This is simply because the character never may walk into the boundary. Usually a region will either use a boundary, or in/out-keys, but not both together.

Character

The character is a region, that represents the player and that is moved through the scene with the mouse. A scene usually contains not more than one character in its region list.

Item type	Character
Description	The region in a scene that represents the player.
Action	-
Condition	-

Key	Type	Default	Description
description	string	A short description of the region.
position	point	(0,0)	Initial position of character (center of bottom line).
angle	int	0	Initial orientation of character (angle).
orientation	int	0	Orientation of character images (angle).
imageStand	[Images]		List of images to use when character stands.
imageWalk	[Images]		List of images to use when character walks.
boundary	[Shapes]		List of boundaries of character.
time	value	0	Time in ms for one time frame to walk.
distance	value		Distance to walk for each time frame. (1/10 pixel on x-axisfor scaling 100)
mouse	bool	0	If true, the character is moved controlled by tools.
actions	[Action]	[]	The actions executed on a mouse click in the character region.
init	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the cursor enters the character region.
exit	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the cursor leaves the character region.
start	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the character starts to move.
stop	Actions	<>	The action to execute when the character stops to move.

The lists imageStand, imageWalk and boundary determine the appearence and room of the character depending on its orientation. Each element is for one orientation, thus all lists usually have the same length. In any case, the orientation is represented with 360 degrees and then mapped onto that image/boundary that lies in the according sector, when all images are distributed equally around 360 degrees. The first image has the angle of the orientation key, where 0 degrees means to look straight out of the screen.

Espescially for the walking images, but also for the standing images, animated images may be used. In that case, the animation frames are synchronized, i.e. when changing orientation, the according frame of the new animation is used. Thus, all animations should have the same number of frames and the same timing. Also, the timing of the animations and the timing of the movement of the character must be synchronized by using appropriate values.

Note: If the mouse flag is true for more than one character in the region list of a scene, only the first one is controlled by the mouse. This gives you a simple way of changing the mouse control between characters by changing their order in the regions list.