Messages

1

Ask a Question / Re: Frame Skips/Stutter/Freezing

« on: August 15, 2015, 01:43:10 am »

Sorry, I can't help.
But the following thread might be from interest for you:
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,40480.0.html

Even if the above named topic is related to desktop exports, the issue sounds very similar.
Just saying.

2

Suggestion Archives / Re: kerning of fonts.

« on: August 02, 2015, 02:08:27 am »

The Drawing Utils Extension by ETHproductions offers - besides other nice functions - a letter spacing function.
It generates a simple "set spacing to {x} for {font}" block in your palette.
Very easy to use.

If you are interested in this function, just go to:
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,35352.0.html

3

Ask a Question / Re: Humble Game Making Bundle

« on: July 08, 2015, 07:19:11 am »

Hmm i cant see the reply you send me here...
Just wondering how much you paid and what you got. A pm would do haja

You can decide on your own what you want to pay.
Click on the "Pay What You Want!" button and then choose "Custom Amount".
Minimum 1$.

If you enter 12$ (or more) you will get ALL what is listed there ...

4

Ask a Question / Re: Fullscreen Graphic Issues (Scale to Fit-Letterbox/Wrong Aspect Ratio) on PC

« on: June 03, 2015, 11:37:19 am »

Please compile "no scaling" just once. It does scale in my case and is the most reliable mode i have.
Cheers!

I received feedback for the PC version: The graphic issues seem not to appear on the "no scaling" PC export.
The scene was scaled like in your case (borders, but bigger sized scene).

BUT:
The "no scaling" method seems NOT to scale on my MacBook Pro (1680x1050) if not a second monitor is installed.
If I run my MacBook Pro in dual monitor mode (2nd monitor = 2560x1440), the game starts in fullscreen, completely filling the screen ... 2560x1440 ... no borders, fist sized pixels. That's totally funky!
For that reason, it's not a safe way to choose "no scaling" instead of "letterbox".
Maybe it depends on the platform ... maybe not. I have no clue.
In the worst case, we must take one evil at least ... either graphic issues (glitch like art/wrong aspect ratio) or an 1:1 sized scene.
At the moment it seems that there is no safe control for this issue.

5

Ask a Question / Re: Preloader

« on: June 03, 2015, 04:10:56 am »

Game Settings > Loader > General

If you are a subscriber, under "Stencyl Attribution" is written "Thanks for subscribing. No spash screen will show up".
The preview image still shows the Stencyl logo in the right bottom corner - but it is normally NOT shown in your exported file.

Is the logo really still shown in your "exported" file or are you just wondering why the logo is still shown in the "preview" image?

6

Ask a Question / Re: Fullscreen Graphic Issues (Scale to Fit-Letterbox/Wrong Aspect Ratio) on PC

« on: June 03, 2015, 03:42:57 am »

Works fine on my PC!
MAybe we should expand your bog post.
These topics will come up more often and i would love to use "noscale" the way it was meant to be actually

Thanks for the quick feedback, Bombini!
I'm really wondering why "no scaling" still scales the size.
I mean, as described in Stencylpedia, this should not happen (at least according to my understanding).
http://www.stencyl.com/help/view/mobile-app-scaling/

If the display error doesn't appear on my friends PC and it's "sure" that it "always" scales (in all cases), "no scaling" is definitely a good workaround for the fit to scale (letterbox) issue.
(But you are right ... "no scale" should be "no scale" ... )

I'm considering to write a little note in the "Fullscreen" Stencylpedia comment section.
The letterbox bug is really annoying, because - in worst case - you don't recognize it before releasing your game.

7

Ask a Question / Re: Fullscreen Graphic Issues (Scale to Fit-Letterbox/Wrong Aspect Ratio) on PC

« on: June 03, 2015, 02:49:22 am »

Does the display error disappear after switching from fullscreen to normal to fullscreen again?

It does!

That's interesting, thanks for the info!

No scaling:
I have compiled a new file with "no scaling".
http://siriusrising.mazeon.com/downloads/2015-06-03/2015-06-03_SiriusRising_PC.zip

It seems to scale also in my case (tested: MAC), but I don't know if the graphic error is still there (I never had this issue on my PC).
Therefore I need to wait for feedback from a friend.
Thanks for the tipp!

8

Ask a Question / Re: Fullscreen Graphic Issues (Scale to Fit-Letterbox/Wrong Aspect Ratio) on PC

« on: June 03, 2015, 01:49:32 am »

Hi!
The Space Pirate version which is on IndieDB works.
I am currently talking about a different fullscreen issue here : Fullscreen without scaling.

Now to your PC version:
I played on a notebook connected to a 1920x 1200 monitor.
Starting the game fullscreen works fine. No graphical errors.
Pressing F while playing zooms a bit in. Second F while playing closes Fullscreen. Pressing F again opens fullscreen (and all fine afterwards).
Could it be that you have a wrong code snippet?
Or you should use a different fullscreen mode.
I get those zoom in errors as well when i use "Fullscreen".
I sue "no scaling" for Space Pirate which works fine.

And happy to hear you like it. I love Uridium and yours as well
Happy to test wehenever you want!

Hi Bombini,

I would be interesting to know, if YOUR game works after pressing F (Fullscreen) off and on again.
You attached an example  with letterbox scaling issues to your posting.
Does the display error disappear after switching from fullscreen to normal to fullscreen again?

However, thanks for testing my game.
The fullscreen code is pretty standard. Please find attached.

Fullscreen without scaling is no solution for me. :-/

In addition, I have started a bug topic:
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,41630.0.html

9

Bug Archives / Fullscreen : Scale to Fit (Letterbox) has Weird Bugs

« on: June 03, 2015, 01:33:41 am »

I have noticed, that the recommended "Scale to Fit" (Letterbox) Fullscreen method for pixel art games is buggy.
http://www.stencyl.com/help/view/full-screen-mode/

It leads to weird display errors on several machines (PC) and does NOT respect the aspect ratio.
Unfortunately the tests so far do not indicate any clear pattern.
On some machines “Letterbox“ works perfect ... on other machines graphic issues appear.

I have posted a detailed described case here:
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,41621.0.html

Also the Stencyl user Bombini has confirmed the buggy behaving of the fullscreen- scale to fit (letterbox) method.

Is this bug known?

10

Ask a Question / Re: Fullscreen Graphic Issues (Scale to Fit-Letterbox/Wrong Aspect Ratio) on PC

« on: June 02, 2015, 03:58:44 pm »

I tested quite a bit the whole topic "fullscreen" in my game.
I can confirm that "Scale to fit ((Letterbox))" is showing different results on different screens.
I have no pattern yet why and what.

I also ran into graphic problems when using fullscreen:

A complete tile layer was missing in this case and main actor was flashing.

In a nut shell:

• Only small parts of the game in fullscreen where showing up
• i removed several backgrounds in scenes to make it work (which makes no sense)
• It might be related to starting the inital game in Stencyl 2.0.0 and porting it to 3.0 and 3.2 and 3.3 but i have no clue

I guess fullscreen is unfortunately buggy but this is just a guess.

Hey Bombini,

thanks (again) for your feedback and doing tests on different screens!
Sounds like bad news.

I also suspect that the fullscreen mode is buggy. It behaves totally weird.
I don't think that it's related to a Stencyl 2 to 3 port or so, since I didn't started the game in Stencyl 2.0 - my game was from scratch in version 3.3.

Have you tested to turn the fullscreen off and on again?
Both testers of my game have reported that switching between the modes lets the issue disappear.
(Unfortunately, after toggling the fullscreen again, also the display error is shown again.)

If this is a bug (I think so), it would be hard to find a workaround.
But it would be interesting to know, if turning off/on the fullscreen "always" solves the problem ... even if it's just for the first time.

Is your downloadable file on IndieDB the version you have tested?
However, I have downloaded and tested your game.
Everything looks good on my PC in fullscreen mode - no display errors found.
My resolution: 2560x1440
My card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX760

By the way:
Played the first floor thru ... was fun to play!

11

Ask a Question / Fullscreen Graphic Issues (Scale to Fit-Letterbox/Wrong Aspect Ratio) on PC

« on: June 02, 2015, 08:33:46 am »

Even if my game works fine on my own Mac and gamer PC, the exported PC file seems not to work accurate on some other PCs.
As soon as fullscreen mode is toggled, graphic issues appears in 50% of the cases.
It seems, that the scale mode (Scale to fit ((Letterbox)) doesn’t respect the aspect ratio.
Also a strange display error appears on the left edge of one actor art.
(See attached Images)

The weird thing:
If the user toggles the fullscreen mode off and on again, the issue disappears in “most“ of the cases.
Toggling the fullscreen mode off and on again, leads to the issue again.

A friend from Brazil was so kind and recorded a video of this bug:
https://vimeo.com/129532805

It’s not yet clear in wich case this error appears, since the exported file seems to work perfect on my personal PC. But also another friend reported this issue on his PC.

Maybe this issue depends on the monitor resolution?

Example:
It seems to work fine on a laptop with 1366x768 px resolution.
Error appears on a desktop PC with 1920x1080 px resolution.

Facts:
I originally created this game on my Mac and transferred the project to my PC.
I have used the Stencyl build 8281 on Mac & PC.
On my PC I have installed Visual Studio 2013 express.
The conspicuous display error appears on the left edge of a 32x22 px transparent actor art.
Game Display Settings: 852x480 px
I have used the recommended Desktop Game Settings for pixel art games:
http://www.stencyl.com/help/view/full-screen-mode/
Strange: I had a related issue on my Mac a while ago, but it disappeared by adjusting the game settings.
See the old topic here: http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,40402.msg227101.html#msg227101

You can download the exported test file here:

PC
http://siriusrising.mazeon.com/downloads/2015-06-01/2015-06-01_SiriusRising_PC.zip
MAC
http://siriusrising.mazeon.com/downloads/2015-06-01/2015-06-01_SiriusRising_Mac.zip

Press "F" for fullscreen.

I really don’t know how to handle this issue since I don’t have this issue on my personal PC.
I would appreciate help of some experienced Stencyler’s here!
Any tipp helps!

12

Ask a Question / Re: How do I mask/hide parts of a shadow actor when it’s not on ground?

« on: May 21, 2015, 06:57:59 am »

Hey,

btw you could use the tile api also at the end of each level (after blowing up the reactor in Uridium in case you plan it) to let the ship explode. I did a test a while ago:

It basically removes tile after tile (using the remove tile block).

Hey Bombini,

thanks for the nice hint!
I'll definitely give the tile API a shot.
I am considering  to destroy the platform, but I tend to let the player return to the mothership individually without platform destruction. My game play differs from Uridium a bit ... however, "if" I would destroy the platform, I would definitely try it via the tile API. So again, thank you for the tip!

BTW:
Your game looks very nice!

13

Ask a Question / Re: How do I mask/hide parts of a shadow actor when it’s not on ground?

« on: May 20, 2015, 12:21:43 pm »

The multiply blend mode may help, but you would need a completely black background to fully hide the ship's shadow.  There may be more complex combinations of blend modes that can work including blending both actors and layers, but most likely they would only be usable in Flash since blend mode support is very limited on other platforms (no layer blending for example).

Hey Rob,
thanks for your help again!

Nice to know this feature but unfortunately I want to focus on a desktop version for Mac/PC. Flash has no controller support and is simply not fast enough (or my scripts are not optimized enough, however) to run the trigonometry and other enemy movement scripts. The frame rate often goes down to a "near" critical value on tests I did. That's bad, especially for shmups!

Furthermore, I want(ed) to make a parallax star background ... so the background won't be 100% black ... the galaxy background contains shining stars.

It seems like there is no way to mask regions or another comfortable solution  - except canceling the idea of a parallax star background for the entire level and putting "space actors" on a layer OVER the shadow within the platform area instead.

Anyways, thanks again.

14

Ask a Question / Re: How do I mask/hide parts of a shadow actor when it’s not on ground?

« on: May 20, 2015, 10:29:48 am »

Honesty, I like it how it is right now, but if you don't want it to fade, what I would do, is send the shadow actor to the farthest layer in space, then when it hits the tiled region, send it to a new layer using the "send to layer" code block. That will instantly send it to the appropriate region with no fade. Is that what your trying to do?
 
(This is my 600th post!!!)

Hey Warzone Gamez,
congrats to your 600th post!

I did a little very rough image of my problem for better understanding (I hope).
I don't want to fade it, because I plan to create split platforms with gaps, little (!) holes and so on later and this would lead to fast fade in/outs ... looking weird.

The problem if I would do it via layer send (if shadow actor hits a specific tile):
The shadow would promptly disappear when it hits the edges of the collision shape ... but "parts" should be still visible, you know?
Only the parts which are on ground should be visible - the parts of the shadow which are over the space must be "masked".

The best example is this classic game video (Vanguard II):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_QG7B7yp-o
Just follow the shadow actor ...

Rough Problem Draft:

15

Ask a Question / Re: How do I mask/hide parts of a shadow actor when it’s not on ground?

« on: May 20, 2015, 09:38:07 am »

Using the tile API you can check whether a tile exists.

Thanks, letmethink!
I haven't worked with the tile API yet ... I'll give it a shot.

BTW:
You wrote in your last reply: "I don't see why your solution wouldn't work. You could have that black layer and then spacey parallax on top."
How would you do that?
I mean, the stars are parallax background layers in my case ... is there a possibility to do it nevertheless?