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Posted on 02-15-14, 02:36 pm


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Hi guys,
First let me say your editor is great! I plan to sink this weekend playing with it

I can't understand the vertical scrolling in level 1-1 area 1. Camera is set to not scroll vertically, and in addition there is a pair of vertical scroll stop left/right midway through the level. However, when Mario pushes the vine, vertical scrolling is kind of allowed.

Does the vine have vertical scrolling triggers on its own? What are they, or am I missing something?
Posted on 02-15-14, 02:44 pm
Super Mario
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Hi, and welcome to the forum!

Yes, the view in 1-1 is set to not scroll vertically, so the camera sticks to the bottom of the view.

Vines (and other sprites, like the spinning jump board, and maybe others) disable this vertical scrolling restriction, allowing the camera to scroll vertically (until it touches the bottom of the view: then the camera gets locked again).

These sprites don't disable scroll control sprites, only the view scroll control settings.

The purpose of the scroll controls next to the star coin is to move the camera down when the player comes from the usually hidden platforms above, in order to lock the camera to the bottom of the view again. I think the camera doesn't scroll enough in order to get locked in that place.
Posted on 02-15-14, 03:11 pm


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Thank you for the reply, now it makes a lot of sense

Still the left/right vertical stops are a little unclear to me. How do they work?

Do they describe a rectangular tile area, and whenever Mario is in one of those tiles, the restriction is active?

In level 1-2 area 1 for example in the first 4 16x16 horizontal areas, there is a top vertical limiter, but there are several bottom vertical limiters. Somehow the gaps in those bottom limiters are also gaps in the top? I still don't quite get it
Posted on 02-15-14, 03:26 pm
Super Mario
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The vertical scroll control sprites work like this:

There are two sprites: the left limit and the right limit. Together they form an imaginary "line". If mario is horizontally between the two sprites, and under the line, then the camera won't go up the line (as if the line acts like the top of the view).

If Mario gets on top of the line by going through the line, the camera doesn't go up either.

If Mario gets on top of the line by not crossing the line, the camera will go up. If Mario crosses the line from top to bottom, the camera will "lock" again under the line, like it does in 1-1.

That's for the "top" scroll limits. These sprites have a setting that can make them act as a "bottom" limit, which acts pretty much the same way.

There's also the horizontal scroll control sprite. That one works the same as the vertical ones, except it's specified as one sprite at the bottom of the line with the height as a setting, instead of two sprites one on top and one at the bottom.

The "gaps" on the bottom scroll control sprites purposes are:
The first one is so that the camera follows Mario down the hole, the second one is so that the camera doesn't "jump" up when Mario goes up the second hole.

They did it this way so the camera stays locked vertically in the whole level, except if Mario goes down that first hole.

If you want to see it for yourself:

First remove the "holes" so that there's only one scroll control line across the whole level. You'll see the camera doesn't go down when you go down the hole, and you die. (If Mario gets down the camera, he dies, even if it's not the bottom of the view).

Then remove all the bottom scroll control lines. You'll see the camera goes down in the hole, but it also goes down in other places in the level, and it feels more "ugly".

Hope this helps
Posted on 02-15-14, 03:43 pm


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Hi Dirbaio, this makes it even clearer! Thanks again.

Still, there are some special cases unclear to me:

In 1-2-1, at the start, both top and bottom limits can fit in one screen, and Mario can see the tiles just under the bottom line.

Also, I guess the lock in camera is a transition lock, as camera still moves fluidly after Mario crosses the top limiters from above in 1-1-1
Posted on 02-15-14, 03:48 pm (rev. 1 by  Dirbaio on 02-15-14, 03:48 pm)
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Posted by zubie
In 1-2-1, at the start, both top and bottom limits can fit in one screen, and Mario can see the tiles just under the bottom line.


There's an additional setting in the sprite that allows you to offset the limit in pixels (I don't remember if it was up or down). If you look closely you'll see the offsets for the top and bottom limits make it exactly one screen high. (The DS screen is 256x192 pixels). They used that to make the camera not locked to the exact blocks, but slightly offset.


Posted by zubie
Also, I guess the lock in camera is a transition lock, as camera still moves fluidly after Mario crosses the top limiters from above in 1-1-1


Yes, there's some "smoothing" going on so it's still fluid.
Posted on 02-15-14, 03:53 pm


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Posted by Dirbaio
Posted by zubie
In 1-2-1, at the start, both top and bottom limits can fit in one screen, and Mario can see the tiles just under the bottom line.


There's an additional setting in the sprite that allows you to offset the limit in pixels (I don't remember if it was up or down). If you look closely you'll see the offsets for the top and bottom limits make it exactly one screen high. (The DS screen is 256x192 pixels). They used that to make the camera not locked to the exact blocks, but slightly offset.



Bingo! It's called "Visible Y pixels past" Thanks a ton Dirbaio!
Now it's 100% clear to me
Posted on 06-02-15, 01:43 pm (rev. 4 by ImageBot on 11-21-16, 03:16 am)


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EDIT3: Nevermind, I think it's about "allow disable" flag that tells whether crossing a boundary is allowed or not

Hey guys, it's me again (I forgot password for my zubie account). I'm in the process of writing a mobile and browser tile based platform game, and I get a lot of ideas from editor - great job!

Posted by Dirbaio
[...]

If Mario gets on top of the line by not crossing the line, the camera will go up. If Mario crosses the line from top to bottom, the camera will "lock" again under the line, like it does in 1-1.

That's for the "top" scroll limits. These sprites have a setting that can make them act as a "bottom" limit, which acts pretty much the same way.[...]


Are you sure about that, if I delete some blocks (act 1-2, area 1), and let mario fall through them, after he passes the bottom limiter, he's in free mode again and camera scrolls without limitations.



EDIT: Sorry, he's not exactly in free mode, but camera does scroll down to show him (stuck at bottom until he crosses the bottom limiter from below again).
EDIT2: It's actually free mode, just I was messing around with view's top/bottom y offsets.

Is it correct that if I cross bottom limiter from above it longer works, but if you cross a top limiter from below it still works?

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