What is it?

The Direction Calculator is an Extension that I have written for Click & Create and Multimedia Fusion. It allows you to adjust the movements and directions of other objects to acomplish things that before were very hard or sometimes impossible.

Here are a few of the things it can be used for:

• Smooth rotation of Homing Missiles. There is an action to make an object slowly rotate toward a position.
• Enemies that chase you. (Done just like the homing missiles.)
• Enemies that run from you. You can use the same action to make an object turn away from a position.
• The ability to accelerate an object in a direction. This can be used to make things like black holse that suck the player in. Also with some work you can use this to make a very well done racecar movement that can slide on the corners. In the same way you can make a space ship movement like in Astroids. To learn how to do this, download the example game (Direction Destroyers Calculator Combat) farther down on this page.
• Expressions that allow you to convert a directional movement to an XY movement and back again.

Download

Version 1.1 of the Direction Calculator is here. This new version fixes a bug in the action for adding a directional speed to an object. We also now have version 1.2 for Multimedia Fusion!

Click here to download the 16 bit version 1.1 of the Direction Calculator for Click & Create. (25KB)

Click here to download the 32 bit version 1.1 of the Direction Calculator for Click & Create. (52.8KB)

Click here to download the 32 bit version 1.2 of the Direction Calculator for Multimedia Fusion. (37.6KB)

Version 1.2 for MMF fixes a bug in the "Add a Directional Speed to an Object" action, however it does not work very well with games created using an older version of the extension. If MMF crashes when you're running a game created for an older version of the Direction Calculator just delete all the "Add a Directional Speed to an Object" actions and reinsert them.

If you have an older version of the Direction Calculator you may want to redownload it. You can find out what version you have by looking in the setup dialog box. If it does not tell the version number then you have version 1.0.

How to install the Direction Calculator for Click & Create

Once you have downloaded the Direction Calculator, unzip it. If you are installing the 16 bit version you will need to copy the kcdirection.ccx file to your Click & Create directory. If you are installing the 32 bit version, the file you need to copy will be called kcdirection.cox. Next you need to copy the kcdirection.hlp file to your Click & Create Help directory. If you do not have a Click & Create help directory just create a folder called Help in your Click & Create directory and copy the file in.

How to install the Direction Calculator for Multimedia Fusion

Once you have downloaded the Direction Calculator, unzip it. Copy kcdirect.cox to both your Multimedia Fusion extension directory (it should be Insi\MMFusion\Programs\Extensions\), and your Multimedia Fusion runtime directory (that should be Insi\MMFusion\Programs\Data\Runtime\). Next you need to copy the kcdirection.hlp file to your Multimedia Fusion extension directory (Once again it's Insi\MMFusion\Programs\Extensions\).

Comments

I appreciate all the comments, questions, or bug reports you send me. Email me at: philip@staircasestudio.com

Vitalize

You can now use the Direction Calculator with Vitalize. Here's how:

1. Make sure that you have the latest version of Vitalize on your machine. You can download it from Clickteam's Vitalize web page.
2. Create a game using Click & Create, The Games Factory, Multimedia Fusion Express, or Multimedia Fusion. Make sure you have the latest version of the Direction Calculator to use with it.
3. Save your game as a CCN file. This option can be found somewhere in the File menu of the program that you are using. If you can't find it, then probably have an older version of your program and will have to download a patch.
4. Create a web page that has your Vitalize game on it. There is information on how to do this on the Clickteam's Vitalize web page.
5. Open the web page and the Vitalize game will download. The first time you run the game, it will discover that you do not have the Vitalize version of the Direction Calculator and it will automatically download it from the Clickteam server for you.

An Example Game

Here is a really fun game that illustrates some of the great features of the Direction Calculator. It is a shoot 'em up space game called Direction Destroyers Calculator Combat. After you have played it a little bit you can open it with Click & Create to see how it works. It has comments on all the lines that use the Direction Calculator. This example also shows how to create realistic looking space ship or racecar movements.

Click here to download Direction Destroyers Calculator Combat version 1.1 for Click & Create (482KB)

Click here to download Direction Destroyers Calculator Combat version 1.1 for Multimedia Fusion (153KB)

You'll notice that as well as coming out with version 1.1 of the Direction Calculator, I also came out with version 1.1 of Direction Destroyers Calculator Combat. It is the same exact game as 1.0 but it now uses the Direction Calculator 1.1. If you only have version 1.0 of Direction Destroyers Calculator Combat you may consider downloading 1.1.

Games that use the Direction Calculator

Check out the first complete project that uses the Direction Calculator:

• Galaxy Defender by Andy H.- An addictive arcade game. Fly your space ship around the screen shooting aliens and asteroids while collecting the many bonuses that are floating through space. The alien's intelligence was created using the Direction Calculator to add improved challenges.

• Space Combat by Philip Williams - A fast-paced, entertaining screensaver. I actually started this before I made the Direction Calculator. While I was making it I saw that I would have to make an extension or something to be able to do the kind of homing that it so desperately needed. That's exactly what I did, and the Direction Calculator served the purpose perfectly for making the ships turn towards each other. I also used some of the expressions of the Direction Calculator to tell if a ship was in another ships line of sight.

If you have made a game that uses the Direction Calculator let me know. Just tell me the sight where people can download it, and I'll put a link to it right here. With this people can see what the Direction Calculator has been used for and maybe get some ideas from it.

More objects!

Here are some sites to find more objects at:

• Click Plugin Central -Mutlimedia Fusion. Click N Create. The Games Factory. - They have a very large list of extensions. It's definitely the first place you should look.
• The Extension Section at the Click Cafe
• Clickteam's FTP Extension Section
• MMF Extensions at the Fusion Programmers Guild
• Only Extensions has some extensions that you might not be able to find anywhere else.