My elisa module crashes

#1

After many failed attempts to get Anura to compile, I finally got Frogatto working. (A friend pointed out that the demo is available on Desura…yay!)

So, I following the tutorial that was linked to in the Developer Info section, but I’ve hit a problem. When I tried to run [font=courier]Frogatto.exe --module=elisa[/font] on the command line, I was simply kicked back to the command line. (I am using Cygwin, a Linux-like shell for windows) Then I tried running it from a shortcut with the proper arguments, but I get told that Frogatto.exe encountered a problem and has to exit.

Since I wanted to experiment a bit more before asking for help, I tried copying the frogatto module to a new directory named ‘frog_test’. running [font=courier]Frogatto.exe --module=frog_test[/font] seemed to work alright. I then tinkered with stuff and got the basic elisa object working. (All the stuff before and right after the Adding Elisa Using the Editor section) I then tried making Elisa animate. However, when I tried going to the editor to add the elisa object, I got a Visual C++ popup stating that there was a Runtime error! (And then Frogatto closes)

I’m pretty sure I followed the instructions… Is there something that I might have done wrong? Or is the tutorial outdated and am I supposed to do something else?

(I am running Windows XP SP3. I would prefer to run this on Linux, but I couldn’t get that to work.)

#2

First thing to do is retrieve the error message. I think in Windows it’s not printed to the command line, but can be found beside Frogatto.exe in a file named something like “stderr” or “stdout”. If you could either attach the file, or upload it to a pastebin if attachments aren’t working today, we’ll have a look. :slight_smile:

#3

Thanks for the reply! I decided to have a look at those files, and it turns out that they had the answers to some of my problems. I’ll cover the elisa module first.

So, the stderr.txt mentioned that there was no minimum engine requirement in the module.cfg file. So I copied the line from the frogatto module’s module.cfg, to get this file:

{ id: "elisa", min_engine_version: 1.3 }

With it like this, the Anura could create a window. However, it crashed right away, telling me the last line of the stderr.txt file that I attached to this post. For convenience, here are the last two lines:

FILE NOT FOUND: titlescreen.cfg ..\..\..\frogatto\src\load_level_nothread.cpp:38 ASSERTION FAILED: FILE NOT FOUND: titlescreen.cfg
I’m not really sure what to do about this…

For my frog_test module (the cannibalization of the frogatto module), things are going better. I found that I was missing a lone comma in my elisa.cfg file. So…I guess commas are to Frogatto as semicolons are to C? :stuck_out_tongue:

EDIT: Also…have I put this in the wrong section? Should this have gone in modding discussion?

stderr.txt (4.9 KB)

#4

Support stuff:
Try adding a line, "dependencies": "frogatto",, to the module.cfg file. That will make the engine look in the frogatto module after it’s looked in yours? but that won’t help if it’s just plain old not finding titlescreen.cfg.

I have attached the frogatto titlescreen, from ~/modules/frogatto/data/level/General/titlescreen.cfg, for reference. If it helps.

Meta stuff:

I think the post is fine here. It’s been waiting for a reply for a very long time because I basically check the forums every month or so, except when I see a post notification on IRC - the project really is centered around IRC, and sometimes you have to say things a few times there because it’s lousy at persisting messages.

Our commas are the rough equivalent of C’s semicolons, 'tis true. :slight_smile:

In other news, I have been talking with Jetrel and we agree that, after the next version is released, we’re going to focus on the documentation. As you have found, the Eliza tutorial is getting a bit long in the tooth. It is a lot harder than it should be to learn the engine at the moment.

I have checked the ‘notify me of replies’ box, now, and will be much more prompt about responding to this thread in the future.

titlescreen.cfg (19.7 KB)

#5

Thanks for the reply! I’ve solved my problem here: http://www.frogatto.com/forum/index.php?topic=586.0 (I used the built-in module creator.)

It’s good to know that there are people on the IRC. At first, when I was looking at the forums, I wasn’t sure how I would get help, since barely anyone seemed to use them! After finding out about the IRC channel, I got an IRC client and now I’ve been popping in to ask a question every now and then. You guys have been very helpful!

A bit more documentation would be helpful, to be sure. While I’m the only one working on this module of mine at the moment, I hope to bring some other people in on it, too. I’ll do my best to pass on the bits that I learn here and there, but I might end up spending more time helping them help me than developing. :stuck_out_tongue: (As it stands, I’m spending most of my development time studying the Frogatto scripts.)

Although this isn’t the best place, (I might make a new thread and/or ask about it on the IRC) is there place which talks about combining several sprites into one? I’m thinking about the way Frogatto works when you use his tongue attack. (His head isn’t the same sprite as his body, so he can aim it.) The main reason I want to use this is for my own player. While I’m not making my player right now, I do have something which could use such a technique. Unfortunately, I can’t make heads or tails of Frogatto’s code…there were some things which weren’t mentioned on the wiki. :’(

It’s no rush. there’s still plenty for me to do before I’ll need to use this technique…whatever it’s called.

#6

The way we currently make Frogatto’s head+tongue work is with a lot of messing around with objects. Frogatto is one object, but when he does his tongue grab the tongue is a separate object* (based off the rope_angled_controller, I think). We somehow synch the movement of the tongue to Frogatto, but I’m not sure how. (Maybe on_spawned? Indeed, the frogatto_playable object is? :-\ ) Anyway, you can do that by setting the sub-object’s position in the on_draw event, or by (I think) setting the sub-object’s parent variable.

*Well, two objects, tongue_shaft and tongue_tip, specified on lines 1819 and 1917 of frogatto_playable.cfg for me.