Chapter 8: Advanced use of control areas

The main set of SCI tutorials shows that the way to check if the ego is on a particular control area is the following:

(instance RoomScript of Script

  (properties)

  (method (doit)

    (if(== (send gEgo:onControl()) ctlGREEN)

      (send gRoom:newRoom(1))

    )

  )

)

If the ego is on GREEN, then he is sent to a new room.

That’s only part of the story.  The value returned by onControl() is actually a bit mask, which can contain any combination of the following values:

These are defined in sci.sh:

(define ctlBLACK                       $0001)

(define ctlNAVY                        $0002)

(define ctlGREEN                       $0004)

(define ctlTEAL                        $0008)

(define ctlMAROON                      $0010)

(define ctlPURPLE                      $0020)

(define ctlBROWN                       $0040)

(define ctlSILVER                      $0080)

(define ctlGREY                        $0100)

(define ctlBLUE                        $0200)

(define ctlLIME                        $0400)

(define ctlCYAN                        $0800)

(define ctlRED                         $1000)

(define ctlFUCHSIA                     $2000)

(define ctlYELLOW                      $4000)

(define ctlWHITE                       $8000)

This makes sense, because the “footprint” of the ego (or any Act class) is actually a two-dimensional area, not a single point.  Therefore, he may be on several colours at once.

To detect if the ego is completely on one colour do the following:

        (if (== (send gEgo:onControl()) ctlGREEN)

            // Ego is completely on green (no part of his footprint hits black, even).

        )

 

To detect if some part of the ego’s footprint is touching a particular colour:

        (if (& (send gEgo:onControl()) ctlGREEN)

            // Part of ego is touching green.

        )

 

To detect if the ego is touching one or more of ctlGREEN and ctlCYAN, do the following:

        (if (& (send gEgo:onControl()) (| ctlGREEN ctlCYAN))

            // Ego is touching green or cyan.

        )

 

To detect if the ego is touching both ctlGREEN and ctlCYAN exclusively, do the following:

        (if (== (send gEgo:onControl()) (| ctlGREEN ctlCYAN))

            // Ego is green and cyan, but no other colours.

        )

Basically, just remember it is a bit-mask, so the “&” and “|” operators are your friends.

 

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