Messages

1

Ask a Question / How do I bulk import?

« on: January 19, 2020, 05:12:34 am »

I was hoping I could drag and drop, or copy and paste 150 sound effects. Is there really no way to do that?

1) Do I really have to import them one at a time?
2) Do I really have to type the name of them one at a time, even though they already have a name?
3) Do I really have to import both the mp3 and the ogg file separately into the one sound in the dashboard? I guess I was hoping I could drag and drop the 2 file types that have the exact same name onto the dashboard for sounds, and have them magically appear in the one sound.

I also thought I could just copy the sounds into the resources folder for the game, but the ones already in there are renamed to numbers. I guess I could bulk rename all my sounds to numbers first, but would that screw something up? Like does Stencyl need to rename and organize these after I import them?

Version 4.0.1 lets me drag and drop, but then it tells me there's a problem that I should report. Then it's locked trying to save until I clicked the close button, then I can only close without saving. But then when I run Stencyl again, the sounds are there on the dashboard, but they don't have the mp3 in them yet. At least that way I don't have to type the name of each of them again. So I guess I'll just use 4.0.1 for the sounds unless someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

2

Ask a Question / Re: [SOLVED for Windows 10] Can you help me fix the 90% memory problem?

« on: January 16, 2020, 04:06:35 pm »

Ok, good to know. I'll do likewise.

3

Ask a Question / Re: [SOLVED for Windows 10] Can you help me fix the 90% memory problem?

« on: January 16, 2020, 03:33:21 pm »

Oh wow I wish I knew that before I spent the time to fix the problem. I'm using 4.0.1 (b10300) - 3515.

Goes to show you should check for updates often, but it seems like half the time I update something, I end up wishing I didn't.

Anyway, thanks.

4

Ask a Question / Re: Can you help me fix the 90% memory problem?

« on: January 16, 2020, 04:01:55 am »

Okay I figured it out, and so far it seems to have solved the issue. I have Windows 10.

1. Go here: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre8-downloads-2133155.html

2. Click the circle to accept the agreement.

3. Click the link for Windows x64 that looks like this: jre-8u241-windows-x64.exe

4. Click the link to create an Oracle account, and leave the sign in web page open while you wait for the email. I had to wait about 5 minutes to get their required email to confirm the account and email address.

5. Go back to the Oracle sign in page and sign in. You'll get a message to save the Java installation file. Do so, and remember where you saved it.

6. Run the Java installation file and install the new version. It'll ask you some stuff, do what's appropriate.

7. Once the new Java is installed, choose one of the following, select it, and copy it to your clipboard:

If you have 4GB of RAM:
java^
 -Xms64m^
 -Xmx2048m^
 -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,javax/swing/text/GlyphView,getBreakSpot^
 -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow^
 -jar sw.jar

If you have 6GB of RAM:
java^
 -Xms64m^
 -Xmx3072m^
 -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,javax/swing/text/GlyphView,getBreakSpot^
 -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow^
 -jar sw.jar

If you have 8GB of RAM:
java^
 -Xms64m^
 -Xmx4096m^
 -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,javax/swing/text/GlyphView,getBreakSpot^
 -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow^
 -jar sw.jar

If you have 12GB of RAM:
java^
 -Xms64m^
 -Xmx6144m^
 -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,javax/swing/text/GlyphView,getBreakSpot^
 -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow^
 -jar sw.jar

If you have 16GB of RAM or more:
java^
 -Xms64m^
 -Xmx8192m^
 -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,javax/swing/text/GlyphView,getBreakSpot^
 -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow^
 -jar sw.jar

8. Open up Notepad or something similar.

9. Paste the code you copied during step 7 above.

10. Save the file with a .bat extension, not a .txt extension. If you save it with a wrong extension, you can simply change the extension to .bat. You can name it whatever you want. I named mine Mr Poopie Pants.bat. You will not be able to save it in the required Stencyl folder, so save it somewhere else and remember where you put it. Then you can copy and paste, or drag and drop it into the Stencyl installation folder using Windows Explorer. You'll probably have to provide administrator permission to do so. For me the Stencyl installation folder is here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Stencyl.

11. Now whenever you start Stencyl, do so by clicking that file. You can put a shortcut for it on your desktop by right clicking it, then clicking Create shortcut.

5

Ask a Question / Re: Can you help me fix the 90% memory problem?

« on: January 16, 2020, 02:44:51 am »

While Stencyl is locked trying to save forever, after it says it can't, my CPU utilization is 1%, and my ram utilization is 4%. How is that a memory problem?

6

Ask a Question / [SOLVED for Windows 10] Can you help me fix the 90% memory problem?

« on: January 16, 2020, 02:40:51 am »

I built a fast computer with lots of ram so I wouldn't have to deal with this stuff, but I don't understand how to fix the 90% memory problem. The only fix I can find is here:

http://www.stencyl.com/help/view/ninety-percent-warning/

It says I'm supposed to put this in the Stencyl installation directory:

java^
 -Xms64m^
 -Xmx8192m^
 -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,javax/swing/text/GlyphView,getBreakSpot^
 -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow^
 -jar sw.jar

How do I do that?

The problem is annoying, but easy enough to deal with, but now I'm trying to import a small GIF and Stencil won't do it. The GIF is about 80 x 160 px, and has about 50 frames. What do I do?

7

Ask a Question / Re: Would you have 1 actor and many frames, or several actors with less frames each?

« on: January 13, 2020, 06:47:22 pm »

I'd use multiple actors. Your "main" jukebox actors would create all of the others relative to its position in a created event, using actor attributes or lists to keep track of them.

Thanks. I've been putting off learning some of that. I guess it's a good time to start.

8

Ask a Question / Would you have 1 actor and many frames, or several actors with less frames each?

« on: January 13, 2020, 05:48:54 pm »

Please consider my jukebox actor. It has 16 buttons with 3 states each (regular, hover, and active). Each button state is a frame. That's 48 frames total.

Which is better?
A) One actor with 48 frames.
or
B) 1 actor for the 10 song choices (30 frames), an actor for the 2 mute buttons (6 frames), and an actor for the 4 volume buttons (12 frames).
or
C) 1 actor for every button.

Does it even make a difference? I imagine all layers and actors get smooshed together to flatten the scene, every time the scene is drawn. If so, I can't imagine it making much of a difference, but I don't know. I guess I'm a little worried about several actors showing up in exactly the correct position for each device the game is played on. In this case the positioning would be fairly important.

Any thoughts?

9

Ask a Question / Re: Help

« on: January 10, 2020, 10:47:11 pm »

Also, if you're serious about help, you should phrase your questions in the form of a question. People shouldn't have to open up your post to decide if they might be able to help you.

10

Ask a Question / Re: Help

« on: January 10, 2020, 10:37:49 pm »

I agree with Luyren. No better education than the tutorial games. Making a game is not easy. It takes time and effort. Check out my signature. If you're making a game simply because you're bored, you'll probably give up or get disappointed. If you're making a game that someone will want to play, or you really enjoy figuring out hard things, or you like logic or puzzles, or you like learning a new language, or you're expanding your career possibilities, or you like art, etc... those are good reasons that will keep you going.

11

Game Art / Re: What programs do yall use to make yalls art?

« on: January 10, 2020, 10:32:41 pm »

Photoshop (expensive), Gimp (free). Both require learning, but you can pretty much do anything with them, especially Photoshop. For simple things or pixel art, you might want to check out MS Paint. Free, easy to learn and pretty adequate. But I need layers, which I don't think MS Paint can easily do.

12

Ask a Question / Re: Behaviors don't work.

« on: January 10, 2020, 09:58:31 pm »

I usually use that prepackaged code only to get ideas and learn stuff. Once I've done that, I strip it to what makes sense for me or start over with my own. It's your first game, try not to get disappointed. Even though Stencyl makes it pretty easy, it still takes a lot of learning. (Check out my signature.) The biggest help for me is doing the tutorial games. I usually don't want to, but I'm always glad I did. It costs much less time in the long run. Good luck.

PS. it also helps to make a smaller test game using only what you are trying to learn.

13

Ask a Question / Re: Having problems. Can you help with a simple jukebox?

« on: January 10, 2020, 09:46:42 pm »

Thank you very much vicevicebingo and Luyren. You gave me good ideas that I played around with. I need to learn attributes and messaging behaviors better, but I haven't yet, so I may have went about it “wrong.” Anyway I solved it fairly simply. Whenever you've got a frustrating head scratcher, you should always take a break from it at some point. I took a nap and woke up thinking of hiding layers. I made a layer for each “active” button (actor), or each button that corresponds to the playing song. I only show it if the song is playing. I realize this is probably more resource intensive, but I have a small scene and it shouldn't matter much.

14

Ask a Question / [Solved] Having problems. Can you help with a simple jukebox?

« on: January 09, 2020, 10:40:16 pm »

I have 2 buttons to play 2 different parts of a sound, with 3 animations each. For both buttons, Animation 0 (for the normal state) and Animation 1 (for the mouse enters state) have 1 frame, and Animation 2 has 2 frames (for the active or current state). So animations 0 and 1 aren't technically animated.

I have a looping 10 second sound that starts when the scene is created. I have a drawing event that checks the position of the sound. If the sound is within the first 5 seconds, animation 2 of button 1 plays. If it's within the last 5 seconds, animation 2 of button 2 plays. This works perfectly.

I have an on actor event for each button. When the mouse is released on button 1, the position of the sound is set to 0. When it's released on button 2, the position of the sound is set to 5000 (the 5 second mark). This also works perfectly, but that's where I'm stuck.

I can't get the hover state to work, which is Animation 1 for each button. I've tried making regions over the buttons, so when mouse enters the region, hover, or mouse enter (Animation 1) is triggered, but that does nothing as well. I've tried making behaviors instead of events, but I can't choose actors or animations in a behavior, only attributes or last created actor.

Am I going about this wrong? What would you do? Would it be easier to make several sounds instead of getting parts of one sound?

Goals:
- Songs, or parts of one sound play in order and start over when all have played.
- Clicking a song (actor button) stops current song and starts a new one, but songs will continue to play in order otherwise.
- Current song keeps playing on scene change.
- Animation plays on proper button (actor) when corresponding song is playing.
- Hover or mouse enter triggers Animation 1 on actor button (a single frame animation).

15

Ask a Question / Re: How do i make my character punch?

« on: January 09, 2020, 10:34:41 pm »

I often have trouble with behaviors, and sometimes end up using events instead. It seems you can use more variables (attributes), and some other things seem to work out better. I'm still not sure of the difference of the two. If I understand correctly, events are supposed to help behaviors, or be used in behaviors, but I find they work just fine on their own. Again, I'm a novice, so sorry if I'm not much help.