Little Known Ren'Py

[PyTom]

Here's a thread where I can post little Ren'Py tidbits that might not be getting enough attention, in the hopes that people will notice than their use will help influence people's programming title.


#1. ATL Transforms can be used inside ATL Interpolations

If you have a sufficiently simple ATL transform, you can use it inside an ATL interpolation (for example, "linear") statement. Sufficiently simple is defined as a single line, consisting entirely of property-setting clauses. This is the case for the sort of positioning transforms we see a lot. (The built-in left, right, and center, or ones you define yourself.)

So you could have:

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transform topleft:
     xalign 0.0 yalign 0.0

transform topright:
     xalign 0.0 yalign 1.0

You can do:

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transform left_right_left_right:
    left
    linear 1.0 right
    linear 1.0 left
    linear 1.0 right

The idea is that you can abstract out positions in your ATL.

I hope this helps a little.

[KomiTsuku]

I still think you are using demon magic to make #1 work.

*goes to implement*

[Elmiwisa]

Ah this thread seem like a good idea. How often would this be updated? Also, shouldn't it get pinned to the top?

[PyTom]

It will be updated when I feel like adding something to it. And it shouldn't get pinned - I don't think people read pinned threads that often.

[OokamiKasumi]

...shouldn't it get pinned to the top?

I'm for pinning it so it won't get Lost among all the other posts.

[TrickWithAKnife]

I have to agree with pinning it. If I hadn't replied, this topic would have been lost to the murky depths of page 2 within a couple of days. Once that happens, it's like it never existed.

[clannadman]

Is this more of a cookbook thread?

[PyTom]

No, since it's not on a single topic. And while I'm at it, I have a good idea for a second post.


#2. Say with image attributes.

Say with image attributes was added in 6.12, but its use never really took off. Hopefully, this will fix that. First off, what are image attributes? In the following image statements, the bolded parts are image attributes.

image eileen tshirt happy = "eileen_tshirt_happy.png"
image eileen swimsuit happy = "eileen_swimsuit_happy.png"
image eileen swimsuit mad = "eileen_swimsuit_happy.png"

Ren'Py keeps track of the attributes of each image. When you show an image with attributes, it tries to find a unique image such that the smallest number of attributes change. So we can do:

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# If eileen isn't shown, we have to give all the attributes.
show eileen tshirt happy
e "So we're here at the beach."

show eileen swimsuit
e "How do I look?"

show eileen mad
e "Hey! My eyes are up here!"

This code shows eileen tshirt happy, eileen swimsuit happy, and eileen swimsuit mad, in that order.


That code isn't much simpler then the version that includes more attributes. However, if we give the characters we use the image parameter, like so:

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define e = Character("Eileen", image="eileen")

we can then use the say with image attributes statement. That's just a regular say statement (as opposed to a narration say) with image attributes placed between the character and the text. The code above could then be written as:

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show eileen tshirt happy
e "So we're here at the beach."

e swimsuit "How do I look?"

e beach "Hey! My eyes are up here!"

You need the first show statement, since say with image attributes won't show an image tag that isn't currently shown. But after that, say with image attributes makes it easy to updates a character's expressions.

(There's some more stuff involving side images, but I'll stop here for today, to let people digest this, find mistakes, and ask questions.)

[Elmiwisa]

I didn't know this is unpopular feature. I use them all the time, just so convenient.
I think it's possible that this doesn't mesh really well with transition and transform. There is config.say_attribute_transition but there is less control over that, and absolutely nothing for transform I think.
Unfortunately this doesn't work with say statement which is part of menu though
Like this:

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menu:
    alice bored "Where?" #<---will produce error
    #choices here