Hi all,

woking on my second mansion I discovered a problem with drawing bricks in layer 6 when they are made of two or more colours.

It's hard to explain, therefore I attached a picture to show what I mean.
It shows two smal walls:

left one: the way we know it - looks solid but it's not.
right one: same procedure - drawn in layer 6, but it looks quite bad.
I tried all I could think of to solve this problem without succeeding jet.

Any ideas?

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If you turn off fringe drawing in layer six, you can copy individual pieces of fringe from place to place with the copy tool. It's not a perfect solution, but it would look slightly better. The problem is that there isn't a single tile with two different brick colors in it. Normally, the tile fringe gets put in layers one through three, so they can lie on top of each other, but layer six has no way of doing that.

Quote:

If you turn off fringe drawing in layer six, you can copy individual pieces of fringe from place to place with the copy tool. It's not a perfect solution, but it would look slightly better.

Yeah, I already tried that but wasn't satisfied with it.
But I guess I have to do it this way  :(

Yeah. In some future version of Midnight Mansion, I hope there can be a layer 7, so we can hide secrets a little more seamlessly.

Layer 7 would not be a bad idea... however one can with extras Draw brick Layer 6 switch on or switch off  :)

@Frost:

I have to admit, I don't really understand what causes your concern (in your picture above) ??!

The right layer-6 block looks just like the left one....except that some half-bricks are green (which looks strange even in layer-4) !

Or am I missing something ??    :-/

@aquaMat
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The right wall shows holes at the right fringe.
My question was, if it's possible to avoid them.
Like psychotronic said: No.
The only way  is to build them two dimensional.
For my taste two dimensional walls which lead to secret room are too easy to dicover (at least by experienced players) I wanted to avoid that.

I figured out a compromise which is not very elegant, but may be it'll work.
We'll see.

You know, one solution I've found is to put the fake wall in the background instead of the foreground. It takes a little bit more work, because the game won't add the 3d fringe automatically, but it hides the secrets even more effectively than layer 6 will. And then you can add proper fringe by copying stuff from layers 1 through 3 and pasting it in layers 4 and 5.

I did a little experimenting but I couldn't figure out what you meant  :-[

Everything came out 2D  :(

Could you give me a step by step example please?

Not really. I had to experiment with it a lot before I could do anything useful, and I do it mostly by instinct now. But I can give you some tips.

The 3D fringe for blocks in layer 4 is placed into layers 1 through 3. Those fringe tiles are just like regular tiles, except that you can't access them directly from the tile scroll bar. I don't know exactly how the editor decides which layer to put the fringe into, so when I need a piece of fringe, I make a shape in layer 4 that will produce the right kind of fringe, and then I switch to layer 1. I select the piece of fringe I want, copy it, and paste it to see what I've got. With luck, I've got some 3d-looking fringe. Without luck, I've got nothing. So I try layer 2 and layer 3. Once I've got something usable on the clipboard (the imaginary space where copied things go), I erase the blocks from layer 4 and replace them with identical blocks in layer 0. At this point, the blocks will look 2d. Then I go to layer 5 (usually), and paste the fringe I grabbed earlier on the edge of the layer 0 blocks. Presto! It looks 3D, but Jack can go through it like it isn't there.

You can paste the fringe in layers 1 through 3, but it usually messes something up. Same for layer 4, really, but if you want to do something complicated like what you've got in the screenshot, you'll have to use at least two layers.

Thanks psychotronic, it works!

One thing though I still don't get.
If I want to use the so build wall as a secret pathway, I do have to put layer 6 briks without draw brik fringe in front of the "background wall", right  :-/

Not really. It should still look like a solid wall until Jack tries to jump through it, and then he'll walk right in front of them, which looks very much like a secret pathway. I think there's even a couple of secrets like that in the original eight mansions. But if you want him to go behind the wall instead, you can always put some fringe-less bricks in layer 6 instead of layer 0. Then Jack will pass in front of the fringe and behind the bricks. It'll look a little weird, but it will definitely look like a secret.

Psychotronic wrote on 15.03.2007 at 16:54:49:

But if you want him to go behind the wall instead, you can always put some fringe-less bricks in layer 6 instead of layer 0. Then Jack will pass in front of the fringe and behind the bricks. It'll look a little weird, but it will definitely look like a secret.

Yepp, I meant this kind of secret pathway.
It really looks weird, sort of like Jack goes right through the wall  :)

The other kind of secret wall is also a great way to hide secrets.
I experimented with it today and it's a lot of fun  :)

Thanks again for your help, psychotronic.

By the way, I discovered that you don't have to add fringe in layer 0 to make it look 3D if you draw a wall in layer 6 and copy it to layer 0. But it only works with a black background or a background picture. Drawn tiles will erase the fringe if they're added to close to the wall.
You probably already know. But just in case …  ;)

frost wrote on 16.03.2007 at 12:19:24:

By the way, I discovered that you don't have to add fringe in layer 0 to make it look 3D if you draw a wall in layer 6 and copy it to layer 0. But it only works with a black background or a background picture. Drawn tiles will erase the fringe if they're added to close to the wall. You probably already know. But just in case …  ;)

Exactly. That's why I put the fringe in layer 4 or 5, usually.

Quote:

Quote from frost on Today at 04:10:24: By the way, I discovered that you don't have to add fringe in layer 0 to make it look 3D if you draw a wall in layer 6 and copy it to layer 0. But it only works with a black background or a background picture. Drawn tiles will erase the fringe if they're added to close to the wall. You probably already know. But just in case … Wink Exactly. That's why I put the fringe in layer 4 or 5, usually.

AHHHhhhhhh, but joy of joys, when 1.08 is released and AQUA becomes the transparency mask for almost everything graphic the black background issue will disappear and whole new layering tricks will become possible.

8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)

Joe B

Mmmm.... any "air date" for 1.0.8, Vern? Or even a estimate?  :-/

I hate to give dates, but maybe in about a week.

The trick is to ... relax by knowing that MM 1.0.8 will be there BEFORE the expansion pack, although there was a time that I thought (and announced ::)) that both were going to be released together.

It is like your birthday with all its presents. It will never be in April or May. How hard you try! ;)

But believe me. The MM 1.0.8-present will be a nice one when it is there.