I'm too lazy to figure this out for myself. Does JCS' cap of 128 animated tiles reflect a limitation of the J2L format, or is it just there for the sake of being a cap? I notice WebJCS hangs if I give it more than 128 animated tiles and try to save the level, but I want to be sure.

(yes, I have a level that "needs" more than 128 animations)

#ifdef TSF_RELEASE
#define MAX_ANIMATING_TILES 256
#else
#define MAX_ANIMATING_TILES 128
#endif

It actually needs more than 256 too. 512 might be enough.

In that case wait for someone to actually get a proper version compared to todays' standards

JJ2.5 is being developed and should be able to do all this. Sadly, it will probably only come out next year

whats jj2.5

Some remake wKtK is working on. The only thing he publicly showed so far (that I know of) is a full HD level previewer without textured backgrounds but everyone believes the game will be good because he already made 3 websites about it.

Hm, I don't know what you're creating but perhaps you could try to get around the limit by putting some animations on other layers. As in, if they have any common or repetitive parts.

Well... Jazz2Online has a level previewer too, it's not exactly rocket science to make one. Remaking the engine is a completely different (and much harder) project. But who knows! Can you share a link to those websites?

1, 2, the third one is already down it seems. You can also find some info and videos somewhere on jazzjackrabbit.net forums but they're pain in the ass to search. Here is one related topic.

I'd like to point out that I talk with wKtK regularly and know more than revealed about JJ2.5.

Then why post about it?

Based on what has been publicly displayed of JJ2.5, there's very little to discuss. It's a level viewer, and moreover a level viewer that has only been shown on three very graphically simple levels, making it nigh-impossible to judge the accuracy of the layer rendering. Big deal. J2O has a level viewer too, as stijn mentioned. I've written level viewing code in C# and also Python of all things. DJazz has written level viewing code multiple times over, including 100% accurate textured backgrounds. Without a lot more information there's not much to say, and more importantly, it has bugger all to do with this thread.

So! minmay. We don't know. There are 512 blank bytes in a standard .j2l file following the animated tiles section, which would hold an additional three tiles. Any more than that would require adding extra bytes to data1, which we know is in principle possible because that's how one uses text strings higher than #15 in 1.23 levels. However, doing that is somewhat unstable and we've historically left it alone because a) the technique doesn't work in TSF for whatever reason and b) loading all those extra bytes seems likely to have unknown and unpredictable effects on the game. If you make data1 too long, for example, you erase all control data. There may be a middle ground, but it's largely unexplored terrain. And all that's assuming that JJ2 would even accept animated tile numbers higher than 128 in the first place, which I haven't checked.

Perhaps a better reply would be: what are you trying to do? Maybe there's a better way to achieve it than the one you're thinking about?

Originally Posted by Sir Ementaler

You can also find some info and videos somewhere on jazzjackrabbit.net forums but they're pain in the ass to search. Here is one related topic.

Admittedly it's not the best, but it has a search function by now. Just wanted to check if you found that!

yay an actual answer

Originally Posted by Violet CLM

Perhaps a better reply would be: what are you trying to do? Maybe there's a better way to achieve it than the one you're thinking about?

Basically, the effect is "snakes" moving along paths. The masking isn't important, it's not on layer 4, but since some of them represent walls and the rest can't look closer/further away, no relative speed other than 1 on either axis is acceptable - so I can't use a layer with an absolute speed to reduce the number of actual animated tiles. I need to cover about half of a 30x23 space; 690 tiles divided by 2 is still 345, a lot higher than 256 - and I need at least 30 animated tiles for other parts of the level, too. The positions and shapes of the walls are almost completely inflexible and this makes any other pattern look very ugly except for a very sparse one (still about 80 tiles), which is what I have currently and will probably end up sticking with. Currently the level has 128 animated tiles, and any more would be useless unless they were about 250 more, which they aren't. (Being incompatible with TSF is completely unacceptable, moreso than being incompatible with 1.23, and I have no reason to do the latter for this level at least).

An animated tile only supports 64 frames, though. How are your snakes longer than 64 tiles?

Well, you of all people should know how to put more than 64 frames in "one" animated tile :P I could also fake a path longer than 64 tiles by covering half of it with another layer (using 2 or 3 animations instead of twice as many)...provided there wasn't anything fancy behind it. Or by using the "Frames to wait between two animation cycles" option and crossing it with another path, though that's even more restrictive.

That aside, they aren't. The longest path is 32 tiles, in the version with hundreds there would probably be one nearing 64 but it would be really easy to stay within that limit. Maybe this screenshot will make it a little clearer:

(i swear this looks way better when it's moving and has the rest of the layers)
(i wanted to make it a gif but i'm pretty sure a good gif recorder is a thing that doesn't exist)

Do the snake segments have to be variably lengthed and spaced? If not, you'd only need four animations for each edge and one per corner.

Yes, I tried uniform lengths, speeds, etc. - didn't like it, it looked like 50 other levels (40 of which used the Odyssey tileset).

Originally Posted by Violet CLM

Without a lot more information there's not much to say, and more importantly, it has bugger all to do with this thread.

It was more a response to Jake, at least at first, then the second post was a response to a negrep which said "vagueries". It was meant to point out that such a thing like 512 animated tiles should be possible in the near future, and assuming minmay will not find a satisfactory answer in this thread he could always wait for the release of it.

Originally Posted by minmay

(i wanted to make it a gif but i'm pretty sure a good gif recorder is a thing that doesn't exist)

(Camtasia can put out amazing gifs at even the default settings)