I am looking to add controls to a piece prototype that will cause it to pivot around the left rear corner when turning left and the right rear corner when turning right. However, I cannot figure out a way to change the pivot location dependent on the pivot angle. Does anyone have any ideas? Or, better yet, is there something glaringly obvious that I am missing?
Have you tried just adding 2 Can Pivot traits, one for each direction?
Yes; as it turns out, the issue is (as is often the case) different from what I thought: I failed to realize that the Can Pivot (and other things) won’t show up in the right-click menu of the piece if you don’t assign it a hot-key. I discovered this because I also added Moved Fixed Distance, and happened to assign it the same keystroke as Mark Moved: my Mark Moved started moving the piece.
So I have that straightened out, but now I have a new question: My Can Pivots appear in the right-click menu, have unique keystrokes, but they are greyed out. According to the manual, I am allowed to turn off the degrees of rotation in Can Pivot, in which case the piece will “free pivot”.
Do you think not specifying a specific angle of pivot has caused it to be greyed out, and if so, why? I could go with a fixed angle, but it would be reduced functionality for the game
Could the problem be where I set the pivot? I’m not sure about the dimensions of the piece in Vassal dimension units (I am modifying someone else’s module), so I made my best guess based on 72 units/inch.
Thank you very much for your time.
Modules are merely renamed ZIP archives, so open it up and extract the images folder, find the image in question and you can determine its dimensions.
“VASSAL dimension units” are simply pixels. VASSAL has no concept of DPI/PPI (dots/pixels per inch), it just uses the native size of the images, possibly with a fixed scaling specified by the module designer. As for why your pivots are grayed out, did you read the instructions in the help (Can Pivot) and also add a Can Rotate trait above the pivots?
I could have sworn the instructions said have the Can Pivot above the Can Rotate; I will try it the other way.
Also, somewhat different topic, but: what is the best way to get piece images to match the scale of a background map grid. I noticed that in the module I am modifying, their pieces are actually a bit smaller than they should be, and for this particular game it is relevant.
This would be in the scope of any graphic editing software you’re most comfortable using. Imagemagick is frequently used for its very powerful batch commands, just needs a little documentation reading to get the hang of. There are batch operation plugins out there for GIMP and a whole host of other software options too numerous to list.
OK, moving the Can Pivot below Can Rotate caused them to no longer be greyed out, but they still aren’t working. When I choose the option, it seems to be thinking – it won’t let me right-click the unit again, but if I choose Undo, then I can right-click again. However, the only time it actually moved the piece was once when I hit several keystrokes in a row, and I couldn’t get it to move the piece again.
Just to (perhaps) make it more clear, I am attempting to modify the Road Rage module so that you can make a left turn that pivots around the left rear corner, a right turn that pivots around the right rear corner, a Move Forward 1" that moves the piece 1" in the direction it is facing, and a Move Forward 1/2" that moves the piece 1/2" in the direction it is facing. Currently, it implements standard piece rotation (around the piece center), which is not how the game I am simulating should operate.