09/09/2000 :

New MagicKit and HuC released!

Assembler 2.5.0 -> 2.5.1

• added support for a new file format to the INCBIN directive. INCBIN can now include '.fmp' map files created with the map editor Mappy (see the link section for more infos on Mappy). That will make our lifes easier for creating big maps. :)

HuC 1.4 -> 1.4.2

• fixed a few tiny bugs here and there.

• offsets can now be added to far pointers :
  
  

  #inctile(tiles, "tiles.pcx", 16, 1) load_vram(0x1400, tiles + (i << 6), 64);

  
  This feature is very useful for accessing graphics data separately, to for example doing tile animations.

• all the data included with #INC and #DEF directives can now be accessed as const arrays too. Data included with #INCBIN are declared as CHAR arrays, and data included with all the other directives are declared as INT arrays :
  
  

  #incbin(level1, "level1.fmp") /* 16x16 */ #incchr(font, "font.pcx", 16, 6) char tile; int data; tile = level1[x + (y << 4)]; data = font[(i << 4)];

• added a new function : get_tile(x, y) that returns the index of the tile at position x,y in the current map (very useful for sprite-on-background collision detection).

• added two new functions to return the current map width and height : get_map_width() and get_map_height().

• added another new function to manage *big* maps (up to 16384x16384 tiles :). All the map functions are still limited to maps of 256x256 but maps can now be assembled to form a bigger one. All the small maps are declared in a special array, and the scan_map_table() function is used to scan this table. It will return the map that is at the requested position :
  
  

  #incbin(level1, "level1.fmp") /* 256x256 */ #incbin(level2, "level2.fmp") /* 256x256 */ #incbin(level3, "level3.fmp") /* 256x256 */ #incbin(level4, "level4.fmp") /* 256x256 */ const int big_map[] = { /* width & height of all the maps * put together */ 512, 512, /* the following lines declare all * the small maps (one line per map) : * * the two first values are the top/left * coordinates of the small map inside * the big map, the two followings values * are bottom/right coordinates (inclusive), * and the two last values are the map * address in ROM */ 0, 0, 255, 255, bank(level1), level1, 256, 0, 511, 255, bank(level2), level2, 0, 256, 255, 511, bank(level3), level3, 256, 256, 511, 511, bank(level4), level4, /* -1 closes the table */ -1 };

  
  And a common use of the map table and of the scan_map_table() function could be :
  
  

  warp(x , y) int x; int y; { int *ptr; ptr = scan_map_table(&x, &y); set_map_data(ptr); load_map(0, 0, x, y, 16, 14); }

  
  When calling scan_map_table() 'x' and 'y' variables contain global coordinates in the big map, but on return they contains local coordinates in the map pointed to by 'ptr'. The pointer returned by scan_map_table() is in fact a pointer to a map line in the big map definition array (this pointer can directly be passed to the set_map_data() function).
  
  But note that load_map() is still limited to 256x256 maps, it can not handle map boundary crossing. If you have to display a map section that is crossing a map boundary you will need to call scan_map_table() and load_map() functions for each map crossed (use the map_get_width() and map_get_height() functions, and the returned 'x' and 'y' coordinates to check if a map section is crossing a boundary).