Messages

1

Ask a Question / Re: Converting .wav to .mp3 without a delay

« on: February 22, 2018, 08:27:54 am »

There are two delays - both unavoidable, but can be minimized to be imperceptible. One is in the waveform itself. Does your waveform show an empty gap at the beginning (usually between .05 and .1 secs)? In addition to this delay, there is also a second delay that is in the file, but not the waveform -- this is the codec information and is also unavoidable, but can be minimized by using the LAME mp3 encoder to convert (this encoder is included in the most recent builds of Audicity, I believe). The good news is that both of these can be minimized to the point where they are not important.

I just did a test -- I converted a WAV file (16-bit signed PCM) with no gap at all to an MP3 (128 kbps, constant bitrate, joint stereo, no metadata) in Audacity 2.1.1 (using the LAME mp3 encoder included with recent Audacity downloads). The result was a delay of .04 secs in the waveform itself. This is small enough to be completely trivial. I then made a flash game in Stencyl and had the sound play on a keystroke (up arrow). The result was close enough to be perceived as "immediate". I've included the game as an attachment.

Note: the very first time the sound is played, there is still a small delay - maybe about .15 or so. I think this is unavoidable, but it's only the first time. After this, the playback of the sound effect is "immediate".

Up arrow plays the sound in the sample game.

Also: if you ever need to seamlessly loop an mp3 (music, for example), the key is to use two separate channels that alternate playing the track at time intervals that create the illusion of one seamless loop.

Also also: fortunately, Flash is on its way out of relevance (and with it the need for MP3 sound resources in games) and is being replaced by html5, which uses OGG format for sound, superior in both quality and without the delays.

2

Paid Work / Re: Freelance illustrator / concept artist looking for work

« on: January 30, 2018, 06:13:12 pm »

These are beautiful, Tobias. My favorite is the first one with the octopus -- it has such a nice story and great detail.

3

Extensions / Re: Extra Utils Extension [1.3.1]

« on: January 28, 2018, 08:16:49 am »

Hi ETH,

Thanks for the previous post - I was able to make just such a behavior and it works well, but ...

... after updating to Stencyl 3.5, the save game wrapper crashes the game and gives an "Error #2134: Cannot create SharedObject" error. Do you know what might be causing this?

(This is a desktop game. The error occurs in both Cppia and Desktop compiles.) Using build 9703. Also worth mentioning - I have also changed computers. The previous was Win 7 and this is Win 10, which I mention because I wonder if it might have anything to do with write permission settings preventing the save file from being created? I don't know too much about that stuff, so I don't know, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

More info - I've downloaded and installed the 3.3 version of the Extra Utilities extension, but the error still happens and Stencyl still says Extra Utilities 3.2 is installed. It doesn't list 3.3 in the extensions pane. (See PNG)

4

Ask a Question / Re: Question about Regions!

« on: September 08, 2017, 08:18:00 am »

bluebean, when you tried Liberado's suggestion, did you remove the 'make [region] follow [actor] block? I ask because even though you found a solution, changing the origin point of an actor's animation can have other, unintended consequences (like when you rotate or scale the actor).

5

Extensions / Re: External Data Extension [1.6.1]

« on: August 20, 2017, 11:57:56 am »

First - thank you for this extension!

I am making a desktop game and I am trying to use this extension to allow the player to save/load multiple games. I am having difficulty with the save text to file block.  I get the expected sound FX for "save successful" but no such file appears in my game's extras folder. This is a PC, and I'm using build 9328. See attached PNG for what I mean.

EDIT: I am using Cppia for testing -- I found the file ... it was saved to the following location:

C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Roaming\Stencyl\stencylworks\games-generated\SOB Aug 18\Export\cppia\assets\data

Is that supposed to happen?

EDIT #2: It seems to be writing/reading just fine, despite this file location ... but I haven't tried it on a full export yet.

6

Extensions / Re: Extra Utils Extension [1.3.1]

« on: August 19, 2017, 10:51:34 am »

Thank you for making this much-needed extension!

If I use this extension to create multiple save files - how do I create a menu for the player to choose from the save files that have been created? How can I access the names of saved games to make a list? I would like to display all the names of the save files that have been created and have the player select one with the arrow keys, rather than remember & type in the name of the save file like it's a DOS prompt or something .

7

Ask a Question / Re: Drawing on top of anchored actor

« on: July 24, 2017, 07:57:27 pm »

Anything on the HUD layer (text and anchored actors) will be excluded from the shader if you use the "toggle shaders for HUD" block.

I, too, have been unsuccessful for some time when trying to draw text above an actor anchored to the HUD. It's a bug, and it has been reported.

EDIT: but you can successfully draw text to an image anchored to the HUD (and you can put that image above the actor, *I believe*.)

8

Extensions / Re: Some sort of zooming extension

« on: July 14, 2017, 10:13:15 am »

On the upside, I've discovered that drawing the text to an image attached to the HUD works just fine, which is considerably less tedious to program than using an actor instance for each character (though less fun/versatile) ... but the log flooding with "hello" and being broken in 3.5 are definitely both still big problems . . . :/

9

Extensions / Re: Some sort of zooming extension

« on: July 13, 2017, 09:40:34 am »

Another important problem -- the extension has a print statement left in it that slows the game down during testing because it floods the log with "hello" ... which is kind of sweet of you but is also a bit of a drag on framerate during testing ...

10

Extensions / Re: Some sort of zooming extension

« on: July 11, 2017, 09:25:46 am »

I am drawing numbers only (plus an 'x'), and I realized last night lying in bed that I could use actors to display the numbers (and then I could tween them and do fun things with them as a bonus), but my question to LMT still stands:  Why not just go the last 10% and thoroughly debug the extension so that it's not just fantastic but also easy to use? It's been 5 months since this was released for testing and this HUD text bug was brought up by Liberado on the day it was released back in February ... this extension is wonderful and I am very grateful to LMT for making it and sharing it, he owes me nothing, but it does appear to have been stopped at 90% completion and a somewhat tedious workaround for everyone could be avoided with some debugging.

(Also, if LMT wants to share a paypal link, I would love to donate something to it.) 

11

Extensions / Re: Some sort of zooming extension

« on: July 10, 2017, 08:33:23 pm »

LMT,

This is a wonderful extension -- thank you for making and sharing it. I would love to implement it in my game as it can solve all the problems with the shader zoom I had previously been using ... but there is one important problem that seems unresolved ... the text on the HUD layer comes out very jagged when you use the Draw on HUD block. On top of that, when the numbers on my HUD change they now draw on top of each other, rather than replacing each other like they used to.  It's really very unfortunate, as it renders this whole wonderful extension unusable without a fix, which is a real shame. The HUD is too important to sacrifice for a special effect.  Do you have any plans to fix this so we can use your extension? The people have been clamoring for a solid zoom effect in Stencyl for a long time and it's like ... oh man, right there ... if only . . . 

12

Ask a Question / Re: StencylForge Quality

« on: March 28, 2017, 06:10:07 am »

There is a 'shared resources' board on this forum. I believe that is where new behaviors/resources that people want to share with each other are supposed to go.

13

Shared Resources / Re: Shaders! Shaders galore! Shaders for all! (gif heavy)

« on: February 04, 2017, 07:27:25 pm »

Thanks for these! Is it possible to combine these with other shaders? When I try to combine the Radial Blur shader with a saturation shader (or any other shader), all I get is a black screen. It may just be too much for my GPU (which isn't a very good one).

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Ask a Question / Re: Can Certain Actor Collision Boxes Detect Certain Tiles?

« on: December 13, 2016, 08:03:18 am »

I don't believe you can automatically say "don't let this box collide with a tile if the data is wrong", but you can, in theory, use the 'data for collided tile' block and a 'sensor' collision box to detect what the metadata of a tile is and build logic accordingly. I say, 'in theory', because I remember trying to do this about a year ago and discovering that the 'data for collided tile' block is not very consistent when it's used with a 'sensor' collision box. (However, It seems consistent when used with a solid collision box, though.)

15

Ask a Question / Re: Why my behaviour shows only the first frame of animation?

« on: December 10, 2016, 09:43:56 am »

Repeatedly changing an actor's animation to the same animation will reset it to the first frame.

This is only true for animations that do not loop. A looping animation will ignore a command to switch if it is already playing that animation.