Advanced Said() Strings - Part 1

Chapter 8 - Advanced use of control areas

The main set of SCI tutorials shows that the way to check if the ego is on a particular control area is the following:

Code:

(instance RoomScript of Script
  (properties)
  (method (doit)
    (if(== (send gEgo:onControl()) ctlGREEN)
      (send gRoom:newRoom(1))
    )
  )
)

If the ego is on GREEN, then he is sent to a new room.

That's only part of the story. The value returned by onControl() is actually a bit mask, which can contain any combination of the following values:

These are defined in sci.sh:

Code:

(define ctlBLACK                       $0001)
(define ctlNAVY                        $0002)
(define ctlGREEN                       $0004)
(define ctlTEAL                        $0008)
(define ctlMAROON                      $0010)
(define ctlPURPLE                      $0020)
(define ctlBROWN                       $0040)
(define ctlSILVER                      $0080)
(define ctlGREY                        $0100)
(define ctlBLUE                        $0200)
(define ctlLIME                        $0400)
(define ctlCYAN                        $0800)
(define ctlRED                         $1000)
(define ctlFUCHSIA                     $2000)
(define ctlYELLOW                      $4000)
(define ctlWHITE                       $8000)

This makes sense, because the 'footprint' of the ego (or any Act class) is actually a two-dimensional area, not a single point. Therefore, he may be on several colors at once.

To detect if the ego is completely on one color do the following:

Code:

        (if (== (send gEgo:onControl()) ctlGREEN)
            // Ego is completely on green (no part of his footprint hits black, even).
        )

To detect if some part of the ego's footprint is touching a particular color:

Code:

        (if (& (send gEgo:onControl()) ctlGREEN)
            // Part of ego is touching green.
        )

To detect if the ego is touching one or more of ctlGREEN and ctlCYAN, do the following:

Code:

        (if (& (send gEgo:onControl()) (| ctlGREEN ctlCYAN))
            // Ego is touching green or cyan.
        )

To detect if the ego is touching both ctlGREEN and ctlCYAN exclusively, do the following:

Code:

        (if (& (send gEgo:onControl()) (| ctlGREEN ctlCYAN))
            // Ego is touching green or cyan.
        )

Basically, just remember it is a bit-mask, so the '&' and '|' operators are your friends.

 

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