Tips about Cyclers

Started by Puritan, 04 April 2012, 16:43:17

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Puritan

Man I'm embarresed  :-[


I've been struggling for almost a day now to get the cyclers to....cycle.
I tried anything; Changed all GPSpeed's, tried to both hitag and lowtag the cyclers. I added/removed palettes on the sectors.
Nothing worked...


It turned out that the brightness on the sector and the Cyclers was exactly the same  :P
Buried under dirt, a diamond in the mud
Infinity is waiting there 'cause nobody can burn a glass cathedral

MSandt

That's cool, usually it's the direction of the C sprites that prevents it from working properly.
"Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential." -Howard Roark

Micky C

How do you actually get cyclers to cycle in a perfect circular pattern anyway? What's the math involved?
Wall whore.

Forge

There's no real math. I think the highest Cycler will light up first followed by the second highest, etc., just keep the all Speeds low tagged the same
I usually use go by increments 100 to 500
                       
                                                           C[0,1]
                                               C[0,701]         C[0,101]
                                        C[0,601]                     C[0,201]
                                               C[0,501]         C[0,301]
                                                          C[0,401]

Then add a Speed sprite to each one

If several of the lights are coming on at the same time, then increase the increments between the Cycler tags. If the lights are going around the circle too fast, decrease the Speed low tag number
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Hank

Forge beat me to it, still I will not delete my original post  :'(
http://wiki.eduke32.com/wiki/Category:Editing_Lighting_Effects
(This wiki is being upgraded to Mapster32 for 2012)
The bottom chapter is not yet validated, but will give you a head start.

The math? Make a circle with as many sectors as you can handle, and choose your highest number, the sector adjacent to it is set to 0. Then divide by as many sectors you have and give each subsequent cycler a progressive number.
Say you have 12 sectors. the highest number is 1100.
first is 0, and last is 1100, the others get 100, 200 etc.
If my gibberish makes no sense, just look at the E2L1 map near the end is a circular lighting effect.
Lieber reich und gesund als arm und krank

Puritan

#5
There is no need for Speed sprites at all.
Just give the Cyclers a unique hitag and the lowtag is the "speed" of the cycle effect.
Soon you can open Alien Resurrection in Mapster and have a look.  ;)


I recommend opening E4L3 ( Shop 'N' Bag) and have a look in the warehouse behind the shop. Close to the "thrash-comprimator". There you have the red circle light effect.



In the wiki's the GPSpeed sprite is not working with a lotag of 1024 and 2048.
If you skip the Speed sprite and just use a lotag, as suggested above, the 1024 and 2048 works smooth as guacamole.
Buried under dirt, a diamond in the mud
Infinity is waiting there 'cause nobody can burn a glass cathedral

Micky C

Alright, thanks guys. I only really started messing around with cyclers this year (being a polymer whore every other year  ::) )
Wall whore.

Hank

Quote from: Puritan on  05 April 2012, 01:29:04
There is no need for Speed sprites at all.
Just give the Cyclers a unique hitag and the lowtag is the "speed" of the cycle effect.
Soon you can open Alien Resurrection in Mapster and have a look.  ;)
Yeah, this I want to see. In your map, what happens if you set the hitag to 0?

I think the hitag is effective only with a switch, i.e. you can turn the light-show on/off.
Lieber reich und gesund als arm und krank

Forge

#8
I don't think the high tag does anything, unless it differentiates one set of cyclers from another. Afaik, you can't turn cyclers on/off.

True the Speed sprite isn't necessary and the speeds you can achieve by using them is limited (still pretty fast), but I find it easier to manipulate and tune the effect when using them. Just the way I learned how to do it.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Hank

Quote from: Forge on  05 April 2012, 04:11:34
I don't think the high tag does anything, unless it differentiates one set of cyclers from another. Afaik, you can't turn cyclers on/off.
Ah, it's my English. Yes, you can. As I said, wiki is being validated (by me) so I check the source code of Eduke32 and test things in Mapster32.
Set the hitag of a cycler to a specific value. Set a lowtag of a switch or touchplate to the hitag of the cycler, it works off/on the first time it is used. That is what I meant, the only use of the hitag is the interaction of a switch, nothing else. But if Puritan or you know of something else, lemme know.  :)
Lieber reich und gesund als arm und krank

Puritan

The hitag keeps multiple cycler loops apart, I think.
I have more than one cycler loop in my map.
The lotag value of '0' is my last light in a "chain".  ;) 
Buried under dirt, a diamond in the mud
Infinity is waiting there 'cause nobody can burn a glass cathedral