How to make Invisible Lines

In my track Reflection, I made use of a glitch where a certain part of track code will cause some lines to be invisible. I initially wanted to make a video explaining how to make use of this bug, but it turns out I have a bit of a procrastination problem... Anyway, here is a guide on how to make invisible lines.

Please note: This is a glitch. It will not work on Firefox, and may be fixed in the future, so I wouldn't recommend using it in any huge project that you are hoping will be famous and played for years. Also, I do not have this down to an exact science, so it is possible you might run into issues that I won't be able to help with.​

Spoiler: part 1: The Grid

In this picture, I have drawn a scenery line every 30 grid units both vertically and horizontally, starting at the point (0, 0). I've also drawn one horizontal line and one vertical line not on that grid.

The lines that were drawn every 30 grid units are thinner than the other lines. That is because of the way the game is rendered. I don't fully understand why this happens, but it is very important for making lines invisible.
When the glitched code is added to the track code, it adds a "strip of invisibility", which can be either horizontal, vertical, or diagonal (but I don't recommend diagonal) These strips are the same width as the rendering squares: 30 grid units. Just like lines snap to the grid when it's enabled, invisibility strips snap to the large 30 x 30 grid. They cover up any lines that pass under them. I have added some pictures to show what these strips of invisibility look like.


Horizontal and Vertical Invisibility Strips

Spoiler: Part 2: Track Codes

If you're gonna be putting a glitched code into the track codes, you should probably have a basic understanding of how track codes work.

Almost everything you see in the track code is a number. -18, 1i 31kv, f8f7... They're all numbers. They're just in base 32 instead of base 10, which is why some of them have letters. I won't go into detail about how a base 32 number system works right now because you don't need to know that to make invisible lines.

Each number in a track code is a coordinate. As you read through the code, the coordinates alternate between X and Y coordinates; the first number is an X coordinate, the second is a Y coordinate, the third is an X coordinate, and so on. Each of these coordinates tells the track importer where to draw lines.

Coordinates come in sets of 4, 6, 8, 10,... These sets, separated by commas, mark a group of lines. A set of four numbers is just a single line as it has four coordinates: the X and Y coordinates of the starting point of the line, and the X and Y coordinates of the ending point of the line.

If the set has more than four numbers in it, it represents two or more lines that share a point. For example, the set "-1a 1o 9 2o 2t u" tells the importer to draw a line from the coordinates (-1a, 1o) to (9, 2o), then draw a line from (9, 20) to (2t, u).

I don't really know if it was that necessary to explain all that, but oh well.

Spoiler: Part 3: The Glitch

The glitch that creates the invisibility strip happens when an insanely long line is put into the code. The number that I've found to be the easiest to remember is 1000000000 (That's a 1 followed by 9 zeroes. It's over 3.5 trillion grid steps!) When the game is given a number that huge, it can't really process it, so for whatever reason, it glitches out and makes a strip of invisibility.

You can test it out by putting this code into the importer:

Code:

-18 1i 1000000000 1i -18 1i##

However, there are two problems with that code. First, the strip of invisibility doesn't go on forever to the left side, only the right. Second, there is a seemingly endless invisible line under the strip that can't be erased, or else the strip will disappear.

That can be fixed, though, because that seemingly endless line isn't actually endless. You just have to make the line start reeeaally far to the left (but not too far, or it won't work. I can't explain why, it just won't) The number that I've found works the best is -10000 (about 100,000 grid units). So this code should work perfectly:

Code:

-10000 1i 1000000000 1i -10000 1i##

You may notice that that code has six numbers, and that the last two are the same as the first two. That is because the glitch won't work if it's just drawing a single extremely long line, but for whatever reason, it will work if it draws another one back to its original position.

So now you know how to make an invisibility strip. The only problem is that it is stuck in one place. In order to move it, you need to change the Y coordinates. Sadly, doing that will require some thinking and some math (and probably a little trial and error). As I said earlier, one big unit equal to the width of an invisibility strip is equal to 30 grid units. Also, a grid unit is equal to 10 steps. That means that in order to move the invisibility strip one width, you need to change the Y coordinate by 300 steps.

To do that, I use this website. Enter 150 + 300 times the number of invisibility strip widths you want it to be raised into the "base-10" side, and whatever shows up in the "base-32" side is your Y coordinate. One thing to note is that as the Y coordinate increases, the position of the line actually decreases, so if you want the strip above the "0" mark, add a negative sign.

So that is how to make horizontal strips of invisibility. To make a vertical one, just replace the X and Y coordinates. The example showed earlier in vertical form is as follows:

Code:

1i -10000 1i 1000000000 1i -10000##

Spoiler: In a Nutshell

To make lines invisible, you need to cover them up with an "invisibility strip". Add a horizontal invisibility strip by adding this code to the beginning of your track code:

Code:

-10000 <y-coord> 1000000000 <y-coord> -10000 <y-coord>,

Add a vertical one by adding this to the beginning of your track code:

Code:

<x-coord> -10000 <x-coord> 1000000000 <x-coord> -10000,

I hope that explains it well enough. I didn't really proofread this, so if you don't understand something or see a mistake, please post and I'll try to fix it.

 

Polygon damn, that is some math.

 

Can't see the pictures D:

 

Fixed.

 

That's really awesome

 

(I'm lazy. I just wanted some code to copy and paste and I would be done.)

 

w h a t

 

how do you make more (i am not good at importing)

 

ez lol