RTCM - Documents - Movement Explained

MOVEMENT EXPLAINED v1-01-2003 Release 1 © RTCM Reaper_Man

/!\ Attention: These FAQ's where written before the development of EDuke, many limits do not apply anymore.

These CON FAQs was written because I believe that there is no one place where CON information can be found - from the simplest ideas to the most complex effects. After the fall of Dukeworld and 3D Portal, a web-edition of the CON FAQ seems to have been lost, and that leaves Duke RTCM as the only other source of CON information. Though they do have information on CONs and how to edit them, I don't believe that this information is easily understood by the newest of newbie's.

The information here is for those newbie's, moderate programmers', and the experts alike. Know one knows everything there is to know about CONs, or any computer programming language for that matter. Everyone has their own style and their own ideas, and that leads to the limitless possibilities.

These FAQs are not a solid piece of work - it is an ever changing, ever evolving compilation of the DukeC programming language - the unofficial name of the CON language. If any new information is brought to my attention, or something that needs to be fixed, I will post updates. You can reach me at http://www.msleeper.com/ as that is my personal site/blog.

Enjoy!

Introduction | Liz Troop

Introduction

The move primitive is what makes the actors physically move in the game. Like the action primitive, it is mainly used for moving actors around, but it can also be used as a flag to do other things.

Liz Troop

Lets take a look at some movement from the Liz Troop:

move TROOPWALKVELS 72 move TROOPWALKVELSBACK -72 move TROOPJETPACKVELS 64 -84 move TROOPJETPACKILLVELS 192 -38 move TROOPRUNVELS 108 move TROOPSTOPPED move DONTGETUP move SHRUNKVELS 32 Though that's not as tough to understand at first-glance, lets look at the basics:

1) The move primitive must proceed the name and number of the movement definition
2) The names of the different move definitions must be unique
3) There can be two numbers in a move definition, both positive and negative

The first thing you need in a move definition is a unique name. If you fail to give the definition something unique, you will get an error during compiling similar to this:

*WARNING.(Lxxx) Duplicate move '(move name)' ignored. Found 1 warning(s), 0 error(s). Warnings found in GAME.CON. You should backup the original copies before before attempting to modify them. Do you want to use the INTERNAL DEFAULTS (y/N)? This means that you either have another move, action or actor defined with the same name. And no, I didn't accidently type "before" twice.

The first number following the name is the horizontal movement speed. If the number is positive, it will make the actor move the direction of it's tail in Build. If it is negative, like the TROOPWALKVELSBACK definition, it will move opposite the direction of it's tail.

The second number is the vertical movement speed. This number isn't necessary when making a move definition, unless you are making an enemy that hovers, like the Octabrain, or one that has a Jetpack, like the Liz Troop. If the number is positive, it will make the actor travel downwards. If the number is negative, it will make the actor travel upwards.