Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere. (Soft Launched on Feb 20th)

Most of the work right now is to ensure that you can get a project from 2.X, open it in 3.0 and it will work normally. So yes, you'll be able to use your previous work.

Hi,

Some questions about the coming Stencil 3 RC, in a PC/MAC build:

• Gamepad supported?
• Performance with maaaany sprites and frames?
• Can I have a different collision-area in different frames of the same animation of an actor?

1. Not that I know of. It seems to be supported by NME though http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/01/25/joystick-and-gamepad-support-for-nme/ so maybe it can be done with some code.

2. It's hard to tell in general, although overall it should be better than in 2.2. You can look in the 3.0 forums, some users have made some performance tests, for example http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,17043.0.html

3. Nope. But you can split up an animation into several animations. There is an Endless Animation behavior shipped with 3.0 to ease the process.

Hi,

Some questions about the coming Stencil 3 RC, in a PC/MAC build:

• Gamepad supported?
• Performance with maaaany sprites and frames?
• Can I have a different collision-area in different frames of the same animation of an actor?

1. Not that I know of. It seems to be supported by NME though http://www.joshuagranick.com/blog/2012/01/25/joystick-and-gamepad-support-for-nme/ so maybe it can be done with some code.

2. It's hard to tell in general, although overall it should be better than in 2.2. You can look in the 3.0 forums, some users have made some performance tests, for example http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,17043.0.html

3. Nope. But you can split up an animation into several animations. There is an Endless Animation behavior shipped with 3.0 to ease the process.

captaincomic could you tell more about 3.0 performance  compared to 2.x for us who aren't superscribed thanks in advance   

What about .avi, .fla, .swf, .mov, .ai and other formats? Can we import something like that in 3.0?

captaincomic could you tell more about 3.0 performance  compared to 2.x for us who aren't superscribed thanks in advance   

I haven't made any performance tests myself. From what I've read from others, the performance in Flash is usually quite a bit better than in 2.2 (you can put more actor on the scene before the FPS drops/you get better FPS for the same game.)

It might not be better in all cases though. Using the "draw image for actor" instead of creating many actors, which was a good method in 2.2, is not so fast anymore (but maybe it will still be improved.)

Abour the other platforms I didn't read much.

What about .avi, .fla, .swf, .mov, .ai and other formats? Can we import something like that in 3.0?

Nope, those formats cannot be imported directly. In Flash you can stream a video from a server.

GIVVVVEEEMMMMEEEEEEE 3.0 Aghhhhhgggghhh!!

captaincomic could you tell more about 3.0 performance  compared to 2.x for us who aren't superscribed thanks in advance   

I was working on a 2d platformer in 2.2, and then started from scratch and have been making it in 3.0 with the same concepts. I found in my comparisons and tests (I made the thread captain linked) that in my case, with lots of enemies on screen at once and lots of particles being spawned, the framerate is considerably superior than with the same activities in 2.2. In 2.2, 20-25 enemies in a group would slow down a bit, and on my brother's slower computer, would slow it down a lot. That same amount is totally stable on either of our computers in 3.0, with the same enemy and same particles, and in a test game I built where the user could spawn as many enemies as he wanted, I found that I could somewhat reasonably have 50-100 enemies on screen at once.

I also use "do nothing actors" with all settings turned off and no code as environmental graphics to help dress up the environment in an organic, easy way. 3.0 can withstand many more of these than 2.2 could, and in test scenes I was able to load up a scene with hundreds, even thousands of these actors without major issues.

In short, I don't want to make guarantees that what YOU want to do will run better in 3.0, since there's so many different things one might want to do and so many different ways in which to program it, but what *I've* been doing with lots of actors has proved to be much more smooth and stable in 3.0, without question.

This is one of my "lots of enemies in a scene" tests from 3.0:

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/16435

z jump, x shoot (hold for charge up), c dash, space switch weapon mode, F cycle alt weapons.

Keep going to the right and you'll find a large amount of enemies, and you can create a lot of havoc and particles with the various weapons. And I've found that in my tests it remains smooth on the two computers in my house.

thanks twotimingpete and captaincomic for the quick insightful response
twotimingpete i really liked the game it was very smooth i tried to push really hard i was hitting monsters and running and jumping and shooting at the same time and lowest fps i got was around 46 and happened three our four times the jumped back to 6o fps over all great performance  i think its one of the smoothest stencyl games i played  it seems that 3.0 has better performance  but also good programming and art and animation help, cant wait to play the finished  game keep up the good work

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/16435

Holy cow that's impressive. Like Metroid with the serial numbers filed off.

Did you use Spriter (somehow) for the animations?

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/16435

Holy cow that's impressive. Like Metroid with the serial numbers filed off.

Did you use Spriter (somehow) for the animations?

thanks. this is just a little tech demo with some assets plopped together in a scene, it's not representative of the actual game.

there are some features in my game that are different from metroid, but the similarities are definitely not an accident. I originally designed this character to be an homage to samus (I defiantly said something about how if nintendo won't make a new legit metroid game, I'll just make my own), but as the design of the game grew and came into its own, I started to consider redesigning the character art. I may do that but I can't seem to come to a design I like that also fits the requirements of the setting/concept.

re. spriter, no, I wouldn't even know how to do that. I just drew all the frames of animation in photoshop using the animation window, and then made spritesheets from them and put them into stencyl.

Nice work, twotimingpete. That's a great proof of concept too.

Hello,
I stumbled upon Stencyl while making a desperate Google search to find a game engine I could use and understand last night.
The 3.0 version sounds amazing (mind you after reading the stencylpedia last night I'm already blown away with what the current version can do)
Anyway just wanted to say what a wonderful product you have & thanks 

captaincomic could you tell more about 3.0 performance  compared to 2.x for us who aren't superscribed thanks in advance   

The submission of non-detailed / false bugs by new users is something that has been discussed and I think everybody is happy with, on the other hand everybody who isn't a subscriber and is waiting patiently for 3.0 would like to know roughly how long they're going to be waiting. As a compromise is opening up the 3.0 forums to be read accessible to everyone but only write accessible to subscribers an option? That way everybody could be happy. 

captaincomic could you tell more about 3.0 performance  compared to 2.x for us who aren't superscribed thanks in advance   

The submission of non-detailed / false bugs by new users is something that has been discussed and I think everybody is happy with, on the other hand everybody who isn't a subscriber and is waiting patiently for 3.0 would like to know roughly how long they're going to be waiting. As a compromise is opening up the 3.0 forums to be read accessible to everyone but only write accessible to subscribers an option? That way everybody could be happy. 

it's really not all that exciting. 

http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/16435

Holy cow that's impressive. Like Metroid with the serial numbers filed off.

Did you use Spriter (somehow) for the animations?

thanks. this is just a little tech demo with some assets plopped together in a scene, it's not representative of the actual game.

there are some features in my game that are different from metroid, but the similarities are definitely not an accident. I originally designed this character to be an homage to samus (I defiantly said something about how if nintendo won't make a new legit metroid game, I'll just make my own), but as the design of the game grew and came into its own, I started to consider redesigning the character art. I may do that but I can't seem to come to a design I like that also fits the requirements of the setting/concept.

re. spriter, no, I wouldn't even know how to do that. I just drew all the frames of animation in photoshop using the animation window, and then made spritesheets from them and put them into stencyl.

Holy crap that was well made. Do you mind sharing the "charge shot" behavior on forge, since I assume this was built in with the rpg platformer kit as it has similar features, and ive been looking for a solution for that for awhile.