Messages

1

Old Questions (from 1.x/2.x) / Re: Two Joysticks? (for a twin stick shooter?)

« on: February 12, 2012, 09:27:57 am »

Twin Stick shooters are a staple game variety; and control method. I'd go a bit further and suggest that the option should be available for tilt based direction of shooting, or direction of movement, making single stick, dual control that incorporates this other input method... as well as traditional twin stick controls.

2

Ask a Question / Re: I don't understand "messaging"

« on: February 11, 2012, 07:01:26 am »

Why did nobody even attempt to answer carroll6's last question?  Particularly given that it's pertinent to not only how messaging works, but also what it does, how to do it, and why using it in certain ways matters.

3

Archives / Re: Add a Glossary of Terms

« on: February 11, 2012, 06:40:43 am »

This seems important, but it's so incredibly ambiguous that it's diminished to near meaningless, yet it's the foundation of doing anything in this engine, and games, and OOP.

++++++
Messaging
A way for Behavior instances to communicate with, and change the values of, other Behavior instances. Note that Behavior instances can send messages to specific other Behavior instances, to all instances of another Behavior, or to all Behavior instances in a scene, i.e. all the Behavior instances attached to the Scene itself and to all Actors in a Scene.
++++++

Strictly speaking, the Behaviours are not instances, they're ON (attached to) actors, which are instanced to create objects in the game, right? So the Behaviours would be Instance Methods... right?

And it's not the values of other Behaviours that are changed, because Behaviours can't actually have a value, they're sets of instructions that operate on values (variables, that you call "attributes"; that other OOP languages call properties).

Which brings up my questions:

Can a Behaviour attached to Instance1 of ActorA message directly to, and subsequently change the value of a specific variable (attribute) in a specific Behaviour attached to Instance3 of ActorB?

What does the "syntax" for this look like?

Can a Behaviour attached to Instance1 of ActorA message directly to, and subsequently activate a specific Behaviour attached to Instance3 of ActorB?

What does the "syntax" for this look like?

Or are you describing and saying that the only direct messaging that can occur is between/within Behaviours attached to the current Actor Instance?  That all other bigger scheme Behaviour communication is just broadcasting?

This is somewhat of an imperative of OOP, that messaging be absolutely clearly explained, as to what it can do, and how it can be done; I'd have thought.  To have such a serious matter be so ambiguously worded is....  if you're wondering why you have a high churn rate, look no further than this sort of ambiguity in the documentation.

4

Old Questions (from 1.x/2.x) / iStencyl Mentor Wanted: Happy to pay

« on: February 11, 2012, 04:10:04 am »

If you've got your head around most of iStencyl, how it does things, why it does things the way it does, and how to do various programming tasks within iStencyl ...  I want you as my mentor.  I want to greatly accelerate my understanding of this tool/engine/sdk.

Hit me on email please, it's my username @gmail.com

5

Old Questions (from 1.x/2.x) / Can Polygons be drawn on iOS?

« on: February 10, 2012, 07:56:56 am »

Is there anyway to draw polygons on iOS screens with iStencyl? If so is there a way to then calculate their area if they're changing in size due to gameplay?

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Old Questions (from 1.x/2.x) / Re: 2 Questions: Blending mode and actor position

« on: February 09, 2012, 08:04:16 am »

I'll second, third and fourth a desire for Additive Blend, and Multiply, for iOS as soon as possible. Overlay also super helpful.

Fantastic thing you've built Mr Chung!