How do I Loop a Randomly Generated Terrain (Not Background)

Hi, everyone!

So I've got 3,601 specific numbers which I store in an array to determine the Height/elevation of the ground.

On runtime I do:

For each "x" in (GroundArray)element i Create Object (Sprite 1x300) to cover the ground

Everything seems to be working fine, except i'm not sure how to scroll loop the ground so that when i reach my layout width the first data comes full circle.

What I am trying to achieve: I am trying to do a 480x640 moon lander-side(that goes left and right) scrolling game with infinite looping kind of game.

Any advice?

Thanks!

When your scroll value reaches your array width reset the count of the array.

When your scroll value reaches your array width reset the count of the array.

Hi newt!

Thanks for the quick reply!

At first I thought, if I could just plot all of the 3,601 numbers into a single layer say "terrain", I would be able to treat that layer as as single object much like a "tilebackground" where one can just reset x to a value (as you say-when my scroll value reaches the array width). I also thought about putting the ground_sprite in as a family, but really there is only one sprite before run-time so I dont think it was a viable solution. I still couldn't seem to find a way to reference them as one entity.

Also, as you might have already guessed, the cpu is rid high when i initially start the game and move my platformer, so any more suggestion on how to plot these numbers and treat them as one would be a treat.

I would suggest destroying any sprites you no longer need.

To make it one object you can either use a tilemap or use a paster/canvas object.

You can draw the terrain to the canvas or paster object, so you'd have only one object. It doesn't do anything for collisions though.

With a tilemap you just set the tiles with events and you get collisions no problem.

As far as wrapping you'll not want a single object.

With just sprites as you have you could do this:

sprite: x < viewportLeft

--- sprite: set x to self.x + layoutWidth

You could also reduce the number of objects to one's on screen and just update them from the array as the player moves.

I'll talk about the looping instead of how to optimize it performance-wise (generating chunks with canvas or paster is a good idea, you will end up with about two big sprites that you will move at the bottom at any time).

If you wanna know the height value at a specific x, you can look up:

height = array.at(xvalue%array.width)

So if you wanna know the height at x = 4000, you will end up looking in the array at 399. The operation is called modulo.

Great!^^

I just looked them up. When using Paster is there anyway to set xy coordinates?

like:

GroundPaster: Paste Object "GroundSprite" into canvas (GroundYArray.CurX,GroundYArray.CurValue)

Currently this is what I have to plot the ground.

Layout&Width Size=480,640

GroundYArray: Set width =55(for this example)

---
GroundYArray: for each x element
{ 
GroundYArray: Set value at GroundYArray.CurX to tokenat("21,21,22,23,24,25,29,30,33,37,40,41,43,45,47,48,49,49,50,50,50,50,50,50,50,50,50,49,49,48,48,48,47,46,46,45,45,43,42,41,41,41,41,40,40,39,39,39,38,38,38,38,38,38,37,37(and so on)", GroundYArray.CurX, ",")

(Disabled to try paster)
Create Object GroundSprite on layer 0 at (GroundYArray.CurX,(LayoutWidth+100)-int(GroundArray.CurValue))
} 
---[/code:8xtzin9a]
I've been thinking, is it possible to just draw a single line creating a single object connecting the GroundYArray instead?? Thanks!