Debriefing development 2D engine on WinForms

Introductory

A couple of years ago I came up with the idea of ​​writing a Visual Novel engine on WinForms. Why on WinForms? Because then I didn’t really know anything. Periodically, the engine has received and is receiving updates to the present day. During this time, a little useful code has accumulated that can be used everywhere.

Splitting text into lines

// string ActorText -  ,      (Split(' ')) // text_width -  ,     // StrSize -    // StrEndl -    string ActorText_str = ""; //     int old_y = 35, StrSize = 0, StrEndl = 0; MessBox_1.Image = (Image)new Bitmap(MessBox_1.Width, MessBox_1.Height); using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(MessBox_1.Image)) { //   old_y -= 14; for (var i = 0; i <= ActorText.Length; i++) { if (StrSize < text_width & i != ActorText.Length) { StrSize += ActorText[i].Length; if (i != ActorText.Length - 1 & (StrSize + ActorText[i + 1].Length >= text_width)) StrSize = text_width + 12; } else { // String builder for (int CreatLineIter = StrEndl; CreatLineIter < i; CreatLineIter++) ActorText_str += ActorText[CreatLineIter] + " "; // Set endl pos StrEndl = i; if (i != ActorText.Length) StrSize = ActorText[i].Length; old_y += 14; // SetColor(lua.GetTextColor())) -    .   . g.DrawString(ActorText_str, new Font(lua.GetTextFont(), 10, FontStyle.Bold), new SolidBrush(SetColor(lua.GetTextColor())), new Point(10, old_y)); ActorText_str = ""; } } }
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
        
        
        
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
     

Sprites and PictureBox

As you know, PictureBox has two image layers. BackgroundImage & Image. In the first versions of the engine, I used about 5 boxes to draw sprites. Such a system had several big disadvantages:

• Problems with transparency due to multi-level inheritance
• Lay out forms when updating

Later, I made the algorithm through Graphics, which made it possible to draw sprites anytime, anywhere.

 PictureBox ALeft; Bitmap SpriteListPic; //       // FreeMovePicture - ,    // posX, posY -    // Scale -  private void SpriteBoxesHolder(Image FreeMovePicture, int posX, int posY, float Scale = 2) { using(Graphics SpGr = Graphics.FromImage(SpriteListPic)) { SpGr.DrawImage(FreeMovePicture, posX * 2, posY * 2, FreeMovePicture.Size.Width / Scale, FreeMovePicture.Size.Height / Scale); } ALeft.Image = SpriteListPic; }
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
        
        
        
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
     

LuaInterface and Try-Catch, as a feature

A little about the experience with LuaInterface:

• Supplement for an article on LuaInterface about LuaTable: For most things, you can do without functions using only tables.
  
  
  
  

   lua.NewTable("Scene"); //   //     TextColor public string GetTextColor() { return (string)lua.GetTable("Font")["TextColor"]; }
        
        
  
          
          
          
        
  
      
          
          
          
        
        
  
          
          
          
        
  
      
       

• Problems with memory leaks when working with tables
  
  

   string TableReaderS(string Table, string Key) { string Ret = ""; using (LuaTable tabx = lua.GetTable(Table)) { Ret = (string)tabx[Key]; } return Ret; } int TableReaderI(string Table, string Key) { int Ret = -1; using (LuaTable tabx = lua.GetTable(Table)) { Ret = (int)(double)tabx[Key]; //   int ... } return Ret; }
        
        
  
          
          
          
        
  
      
          
          
          
        
        
  
          
          
          
        
  
      
       

  
  
  Each time you call GetTable , you get a new CLR object that references the Lua table referenced by this global Lua variable.
  
  
• If you are not sure what the value in the table is at all:
  
  
  
  

   try { Size = TableReaderI("Scene", "Image" + Convert.ToString(num) + "Scale"); } catch (Exception ex) { Size = 2; }
        
        
  
          
          
          
        
  
      
          
          
          
        
        
  
          
          
          
        
  
      
       

  
  
  Lua will return a value, but not the fact that it will be a number. Therefore Catch (Exception) . The option with double.TryParse is not suitable here, because lua.GetTable does not return a string, but a certain type, which is LuaTable and can be converted to a string if it was assigned such a value, also with a number.