File Caching, Animations and The World!

So, this weekend has been rather productive. The first thing I did was get stuck into that section of code I've been meaning to get on, where the app will download a file from the server, and then keep a cached version of it to re-use. It will recheck the server for newer files, but always default to using what it has already downloaded. Quicker for you, quicker for the server - and most importantly, it means when the world is updated, or new things are added, there's no need for an app update, I can merely update the server, and bam. Done. Champagne's popping all round.

The next thing was building on that. I removed al the files that I had built into the app itself that stored animations and the like and dropped em on the server. That took a bit of re-writing so that the app knew how to find the original files, and then to process things from a different location and the like. Anyhow, that's also done now.

Lastly, I've been looking around at my little world and checking a few things. I timed running from one end to the other, in the straightest possible manner. About two and a quarter minutes. That's with no combat along the way, and basically legging it as quickly as I could. Certainly enough for a nice bit of testing, but I think this will be a fantastic starting zone in the greater scheme of things. Or maybe one of the starting zones.

So that's where I'm at. Today's file work brought me a lot closer to being able to implement the on-the-fly bitmap loading for animations and the like, but I didn't get as far as I'd hoped I would. I think my next app focus will be to read and process animated objects (things like the player character and monsters) differently more inline with how this new animation code works. That will be the next few nights, in amongst finishing up the world for testing.