The Dink Network

While working on my dmod A Dragon of Destiny I got annoyed with the way the sprites were scattered all over the place rather than being logically arranged. I found myself wishing similar sprites could be grouped together. But then I realised since I had taught myself how to add sprites I knew all that I needed to know to rearrange the Dink.Ini to suit my needs and desires. At first I didn't really bother with it since I was too bust working on the dmod, but then today I got bored with spending almost all my conputer time working on my dmod so today I began work on the Dink.ini rewrite. I am almost finished it, but have realised I must edit a few scripts and so will have to begin work on that soon.

While working on it I realised others might find it useful, so I would like to know if anyone is interested in using it for their dmods. If they are I will release it, including edited scripts for things like swords and axes with it so that they use the correct graphics.

NEW: I think the ordering of the defualt Dink.ini and the gaps it leaves are nightmarish and weird, not to mention annoying. Mine fixes that I think. At least i hope it does.

IIRC, the "Skeleton Whatever" development file has a rewritten dink.ini. It may also be available as a stand-alone download, I don't know.

Yes it has, but it isn't as logically arranged.

My rewrite includes all the title screen graphics together, all the Dink grahpics together, all the people graphics together (with graphics from the sub-categories together), animals grouped togther (with the sub categories grouped together), monster categories together (with graphics from the sub categories together), building and structure graphics together, land graphics together, bonus category graphics together, item graphics together, effects graphics together and inter graphics together. This makes it easier to find certain graphics and to combine certain graphics.

It also has very little unused graphics slots before 468. This makes it easier to find available slots since you can just add them to 469 onwards. Oh, and yes, I used all the graphics, despite the low number of the highest slot. It's just that I left less unused slots inbetween used slots. Like I said this makes finding unused ones easier.

So in short the rewrite is doubly useful to dmod authors.

But to be honest I don't care to much if noone wants it. To be honest I origionally done it for my own benefit. I am only offering it because it occured to me others might find it useful.

Are you aware of the way sprites of monsters and people are arranged in the same way the numpad has been done? That is; every monster points to the direction of the numpad so you can't slam other graphics in that position in order to save slots?

umm i hope you didn't put all the different dink actions in one sequence cause that would be bad. Plus i believe some of the sequences have to stay the same so that, the dink engine can call the right sequence. For example blood is automatically called by the engine but if you give it a different sequence number it wouldn't really work out to well.

sp_base_walk works based on having sequences in the right place; namely, it adds 2 to the base_walk value when it wants the sequence where the sprite faces down, adds four for when it faces left, etc. So enemies won't work unless you keep the weird numbering at least partially intact.

Yeah but what if edited the sripts to have the new sequence?

Besides I know from experience there are certain things that CAN be moved. So I can improve the ordering a little at least.

Also how can you be so sure? Have you tried it?

"A Dragon of Destiny" - Sounds original!

A handful of sequences are hard-coded, without any reference to them in scripts. Like igloo said, blood MUST be in sequences 187-189. Dink's push animation (if you plan on having pushing, anyway) MUST be in base walk 310. Changing anything before sequence 10 can cause problems.

I think most of Dink's sequences are sort-of hard coded into the engine... I vaguely remember something about this while looking into the source code.

I'm curious to see what you've done with dink.ini. Can you hook me up a copy? You can probably find my email under my profile.

BTW guys, it is possible to shorten the ini quite a bit, because, for an enemy or something you can leave sequences 10k+2, 10k+4, 10k+5, 10k+6, 10k+8, and move nonanimated stuff into the vacant 10k+1, 10k+3, 10k+7, 10k+9 slots. If anything, it'd make things harder to find, but who cares?

Edit: I'll put money that basewalk doesn't have to be a multiple of ten, so if some dinker preferred base seven, they could probably rewrite the ini that way, and shorten it a lot.
Why seven? 8-2 = 6, that's why. Of course, for most of us, base 10 is easier to work with.

I don't think that would work. Look at the pillbug. It uses seq 131 and 133, while it moves in the "even" directions too (when it has a target). So I predict that if you load a house or something in 132, Dink'll be followed by a (terribly animated) house, when he attacks the thing and moves below it.

Whoops! It seems that in general I reversed things. Most sprites move in odd numbers only (the pillbug being an exception?) I said even numbers earlier, but that's how they hit. So, whatever.

Anyhow, I don't think most sprites have 9 sequences. When they move in even directions, they probably substitute an odd direction. At least, I can't find the even directions in my .ini. So, whatever.

If you give a sprite only one sequence, it uses it in every direction it moves. If you give it 9, it uses all 9 of them... **5 is the sprite's death sequence.

Oh... well, that's bad. But base_death can be set to whatever, so you could use the fifth for something else. Basically, then, the only free sequence is _ _ 0. So, at most, you could shorten the .ini by 10% this way.

Dink's attack sequence (base 100) is also hard coded for bows.

Oh well the NOTANIM sequences work when I move them so I can still restucture it a little.

Oh, and I added some things before sequence 10 and they work well enough, ie they don't cause crashes or bugs.

Actually, Milo Bones I tried that and they were included in the movement sequences.

And no I can't send it right now because I have to start again becasue of the above problem. And I ain't gonna bother with it till after new year since I am busy working on other projects, such as my short stories, my novels and my dmod and will be busy with new year/christmas stuff.