The NGLE Manual
Changing the
Colour of Health Bars
By Wayne
Scales
With TRNG, we now can change the colours of
default tomb4 bars like the air bar, hp bar, loading bar etc
with a few simple script commands. Here is a health bar I
have customized for my Secrets Of Nepal game. It's a nice
icey blue bar to fit the snowy theme of the level.
Here is the syntax you have to follow in order to
customise the bar you want:
Syntax: Customize=CUST_BAR, BarType (BAR_...),
FlagsBar (FBAR_...), XOrigin, YOrigin, XSize, YSize,
IdColor1, IdColor2, Extra
This can go in the title as well as the level section of the
script.
Field Descriptions
BarType (BAR_...) field=
In this field we type a bar_constant to specify which bar
we want to modify. Here they are for reference:
BAR_AIR
BAR_DASH
BAR_HEALTH
BAR_LOAD_LEVEL
BAR_CUSTOM1
BAR_CUSTOM2
BAR_CUSTOM3
BAR_CUSTOM4
FlagsBar (FBAR_...) field
In this field we can create an animation for your
selected bar like flashing colours etc. You can use two or
more FBAR_Flag commands to specify an animation mode. If you
don't wish to use this type IGNORE
Here is the description of the FBAR_SOUND_BAR_ANIM taken
from the reference section of the ng scripter.
Customize=CUST_BAR. This flag creates in current
bar floating colors like you see in audio bar in Options
screen.
When you use this flag you can also type in Extra field an
IdColor (pointing to some ColorRGB= command) to set the mask
color. The audio bar works in a particular way: there is a
floating effect using two colors, the MainColor (IdColor1)
and the background color (IdColor2), while the mask color
will be used to paint the full side of bar.
For example if you use this flag with BAR_HEALTH and lara
has 50% of HP, the left half of bar will be colored with
MaskColor to differentiate by right (empty) half. The mask
color doesn't paint fully the bar but it will be added to
current floating effect. For example if you set as MaskColor
the rgb, with 0,0,0 values, you'll get no difference between
left side and right side of bar because adding the 0,0,0,
nothing changes, while if you set like mask color the white,
with rgb values 255,255,255, the full side of bar will
become fully white, losing the floating effect.
For above reasons it is a bit complicated set a good
maskcolor. You should try a mask color where the rgb value
was not 0 but not 255 either. For example a color like:
128,128,128 (this is the default mask color if you type
IGNORE in extra field), or 63,63,63 (it used in tomb4 for
audio bar in some circumstances)
FBAR_SHOW_BAR_NAME
This flag is only used for custom bars, they have
predefined index to show the text.
BAR_CUSTOM1 : Extra NG String with index = 301
BAR_CUSTOM2 : Extra NG String with index = 302
BAR_CUSTOM3 : Extra NG String with index = 303
BAR_CUSTOM4 : Extra NG String with index = 304
If you want
to show the current value of the bar under it you must type
the variable placefolder for it:
301: Resistence #0050
OR
301: #0050
So will be used the current value of Local Short Alfa1 under
the BAR_CUSTOM1.
XOrigin, YOrigin, XSize, YSize fields
These fields are quite cool as they allow you to
change the size and position of you bar ingame. I've had
some great fun messing with these. If you want to keep the
original size of the bar just type ignore in this field.
Remark: All values you
type in these fields are in pixels and they are computed to
work with a game screen resolution of 640x480.
This method is necessary since you can't know what the
effective game screen size will be while a game is being
played as the player could change the resolution settings.
Therefore you compute the position and size of bars using a
resolution of 640x480 pixels as a reference, then, if the
game is played at a different resolution, the trng engine
will adapt proportionally the coordinates you've set.
Here is the sizes of the default bars:
TypeBar OrgX OrgY SizeX SizeY
-------------------------------------
HealthBar 8 8 150 12
DashBar 481 8 150 12
AirBar 481 26 150 12
LoadBar 20 444 600 15
This is good as a basis to the size you wish to achieve
with your customised bars.
Remark:
there is some rounding changes between full screen and
windowed mode, usually with gaps of 1 or 2 pixels.
IdColor1 field
Here, we have to type an ID to identify a ColorRGB=
script command with rgb color set as the main colour for the
bar. For example if you want have a pure red bar you can
type:
ColorRGB=3, 255,0,0
The ID is 3, so you'll type the value 3 in IdColor1 field to
set the red as main color (this is the main colour of the
full bar).
Warning: About the
ColorRGB command you reference with IdColor it's necessary
it is typed FIRST of Customize=CUST_BAR command otherwise
when TRNG engine is parsing the CUST_BAR command the
ColorRGB (if you type it down) will result as missing and it
will appear black in color.
Here are the default colours used in the tomb4 bars:
BarType Red Green Blue
--------------------------
HealthBar 255 0 0
DashBar 0 255 0
AirBar 0 0 255
Again, this is a good basis for a certain colour you want
to create. It requires trial and error but it's cool to see
the mix you can create!
IdColor2 field
This works like IdColor1 except you can create a
background colour for the bar. The default tomb4 bar is set
to black (0,0,0).
Remark: For some reason
the values of IdColor1 and 2 works in the inverse way for
custom bars, the IdColor1 should be the mask color [the
usually 0, 0, 0 RGB] and the IdColor2 is the main color of
the bar.
Extra field
This field may accept different values in conjunction
with further FBAR_ flags. Read the description of FBAR_
constants to discover the usage of this Extra field.
The custom bar
is different by other health, dash and air bar, because in
this case there is no predefined target for it. So it is a
free bar to use for your new skills and more. To use the new
bar you must assign a variable placefolder in the EXTRA
field.
Customize= CUST_BAR, BAR_CUSTOM1, FlagsBar
(FBAR_...), XOrigin, YOrigin, XSize, YSize, IdColor1,
IdColor2, #0042
#0042 means the Local Byte Alfa3 will be
used to store the value of the bar
You can use
any variable placefolder for your custom bar, except, of
course, from the TEXT entries
Now we're well on our way to customising all the default
tomb4 for bars to create some special effects and add that
extra detail to your mission.
Now we use the ColorRGB= command to change the colour of the
bar. Here's the syntax we will follow:
Syntax: ColorRGB= IdColor, Red, Green, Blue
It can go in both the level and title section of the script.
Remark: With ColorRGB
you can insert a RGB value to use in second moment with some
flipeffect or actions using the IdColor as reference to
locate it.
Field Descriptions
IdColor field
This is the progressive number to identify this
colour from other colours you've set in same [Level]
section. When you use some flipeffect or action requiring a
script colour you have to insert this IdColor number in
trigger to locate the wished colour.
Red field
This is the intensity of the red colour. You can type
a value between 0 and 255.
Green field
This is the intensity of the green colour. You can
type a value between 0 and 255.
Blue field
This is the intensity of the blue colour. You can
type a value between 0 and 255.
That's it! Have fun experimenting with the fields and see
what effects you can come up with. Here is my customised
script for my bar.
ColorRGB=8, 0,190,255
Customize= CUST_BAR, BAR_HEALTH, IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE,
IGNORE, IGNORE, 8, IGNORE
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