Messages

1

Resolved Questions / Re: List inside list problem

« on: October 19, 2012, 12:22:21 pm »

First of all: yes, you're correct. When you add a list to another list, you're keeping "this particular list which might change over time", not "a list which contains items 1, 2, 3, 4 and it doesn't matter which list is that". Those list are kind of like Actors, but without Actors. I mean... uhh, forget about that analogy! ^^'

Second: if I were to compare the contents of two lists, I would do some loop checking equality of items at proper indices and probably pack it in a custom blocks. Though I suppose comparing the list to the text might be actually "neater", though probably some hardcore programmers would complain about it not being in proper coding style and such, especially with such unusual casting!

OR you can use the ArrayUtil function from Stencyl API. As far as I know, the code in API is rather safe update-to-3.0 wise though I might be wrong here. And you might pack it in global custom block so you wouldn't need to type it every damn type you would want to; after all, the whole idea behind DM is that you need to type things manually only as much as necessary!

The global custom block would have Boolean return value and "One List" and "Another List" list-type fields. Specification would probably make sense to be like "lists %0 and %1 are identical", and the only contents would be code block containing the following:
ArrayUtil.arraysAreEqual(__OneList, __AnotherList);
(note the double underscore!)

And why making it global? Because you won't need to attach some behavior to every scene where you could possibly use such check. Yay!

...hope this helps? ^^'

2

Ask a Question / Re: BufferedImage in as3?

« on: October 17, 2012, 10:14:52 am »

Also, I've been playing around with BitmapData, and even made a sets of Custom Blocks for that. I've just put them on Forge as "Bitmap Utils", but beware - I haven't really documented them. ^^'

3

Ask a Question / Re: Graphics File Size Optimization

« on: October 14, 2012, 11:20:12 pm »

I wonder, maybe try importing the PNGs with dimensions halved (so they're actually smaller), and try resizing them in the game? O.o'

I don't know whether the result will be favorable or not, but I suppose it's worth trying. ^^'


Oh, and for resizing; once you have an actor in game with a single-frame animation called "Animation", you can use such code in Drawing event:
g.drawImage(actor.anims["Animation"].pixels, actor.x, actor.y, [width], [height]);
with [width] and [height] replaced with the original dimensions.
...as far as I remember, at least. O.o'
(and if you do so, don't forget to hide actor in Created event with a block in Actor >> Drawing palette!)

4

Chit-Chat / Re: Loading times

« on: October 14, 2012, 01:08:15 am »

Four... times... four... tiles? O.o'
Yeah, I can see how, like, 15360 calls per 640x384 screen can increase render time. O.o'

Also, what is the largest screen size you're going to use? I ask because I wonder whether single BitmapData could cover it all, thus making it possible to draw all these tiley thingies at the very beginning and then only copying the visible fragment onto another bitmap, which would be then displayed during Drawing cycle. Should be this done in the most crude way (as in, the whole screen-sized fragment would be drawn on the "display" bitmap, then that bitmap would be drawn again in Drawing cycle), it should take 2-3 screen drawings per cycle.

Also, I've done a little test, and on my machine drawing 640x360 image 25 times (which is supposed to represent 24-25 screen drawings per cycle) takes about 12-13 ms to render at worst, with both player and browser checked. If you want to check how it runs on your machine, you can get "Efficiency Test" behavior on Forge I just sent. ^^

(and what type of game is that, anyway? There's a huge difference between tile-based Sokoban-like collision and shooter-like pixel/rectangle precise collision ^^')

5

Chit-Chat / Re: Loading times

« on: October 13, 2012, 12:42:31 pm »

Hmm...

1) Do tiles take part in some sort of collisions (in other words, do they matter for the game mechanics or are only for visual purpose)?
2) If so, do they have other collision shapes than tile-sized rectangle?

I ask, because I wonder whether it wouldn't be possible to use 2D Array system (for keeping information about tiles) and lagless actorey thingamajigs (to draw proper tiles at given places). If they were taking parts in collisions, things might get more complicated, but hopefully not too much! >.< However, if tiles have irregular collision shapes, there really isn't much which can be done. ^^'

6

Chit-Chat / Re: Loading times

« on: October 13, 2012, 11:51:02 am »

As long as it's only once per whole game, I don't think it's *that* horrible! O.o'

However, having some sort of progress bar could make the waiting much more pleasant. Adding some funny text describing what supposedly happens during that loading process would help as well, but generally it would be good to give some approximation of how long the player is supposed to wait!

By the way, what is the map which takes so much time to load? Perhaps it can be optimized somehow, or at least split for a few more series of loading (as in, the territory which hasn't been generated yet would be generated at the time of visiting and then saved for eternity)? ^^'

7

Chit-Chat / Re: Stoopid ASIO doesn't allow me to use tracker ;-;

« on: October 11, 2012, 10:39:55 am »

Err... alright, it turned out that after playing a bit with settings I could find a "Sound Card" option! And what was there? A dropdown from which I could choose "The Basic Audio Controller" or however it translates to English!

Therefore, I am baka-baka. Oh well! >.<

(thanks, anyway... ^^')

8

Chit-Chat / Stoopid ASIO doesn't allow me to use tracker ;-;

« on: October 11, 2012, 09:52:41 am »

As in topic.

When I try playing track in OpenMPT, the following warning shows:
There are no Creative audio products installed and running on the system that support ASIO

Apparently, it's because I took out the sound card from my computer, and there's apparently no way I would get it back. Also, I know it's not program-specific, since I've seen this error mentioned in context of other soundtrack creation software.

Also, the only files which have "asio" in their name, are ctasio.dll and ctasio64.dll, and they're both in DriverStore/FileRepository/stuffmorestuffetc., and the system doesn't allow to do anything with them, whether it would be copying or removing or whatever.

Anybody knows what else can help? >.<

9

Ask a Question / Re: Why is my font not rendering properly?

« on: October 10, 2012, 09:36:56 pm »

It's because Stencyl font system is silly!!1!1

Or rather, from Stencyl's point of view, each character is a bitmap of a rectangular shape, and drawing text is based on placing such bitmaps one after another, assuming the bitmap width as a letter width. With such system letter ornaments might causes the bitmap to widen, and thus letter appears to be wider from the Stencyl's point of view. It's particularly visible in the case of l/p gap, where letter L has an ornament on the right at the top, and then there's letter P which has ornament on the left at the bottom.

I'm not sure how that could be fixed, though. Sorry. >.<

10

News / Re: Stencyl 3.0 - Design Once. Play Anywhere.

« on: September 26, 2012, 09:23:56 am »

Well, if you're paying customer, and looking at your iOS Pro badge you probably are, then you should have access to beta. Take a look at the forums main page and you should find it, I think. ^^'

11

Ask a Question / Re: How can I fix the test game showing only 20x12 tiles when my scene is 20x15?

« on: September 25, 2012, 09:27:07 am »

Enter Game Settings and change Screen Size, rather than Scene size.

In Stencyl 2.2 Game Settings can be accessed through the button on the second top bar (below the one with File, View, Run etc.), next to Stencyl Forge button.

In older versions you can change Game Settings through buttons on the left side, where you add new Actors, Behaviors, Fonts etc.

12

Ask a Question / Re: help me with draw light radius

« on: September 23, 2012, 12:29:36 am »

Hmm... I wonder, this light radius is a large black image with semi-transparent circle in the middle, isn't it? O.o'
If so, have you turned off its physics? Maybe what's happening is large collision apocalypse or something?

13

Archives / Re: [iOS] Checksum protect Save Data

« on: September 10, 2012, 08:50:15 am »

Well, once you have a way to reasonably secure your save data, you can also include the time of saving as well. Of course, player can set the device clock to some time later or so, but once the game is run, the later time is stored. What is the advantage of that?

Well, when the device time is *earlier* than the saved one, you can be pretty sure that someone tampered with device clock (with exception of time change >.<). How would you proceed with that, I don't know, but there's still a possibility of detecting time hacks (unless player decides not to switch the device clock back to original state, but most of users probably wouldn't bother with time-changing when the game doesn't accept going back in time, I suppose O.o')

14

Chit-Chat / Re: Marcum game Jam 25

« on: September 10, 2012, 07:51:26 am »

(Gore and violence is fine Just no Adult content this a Family friendly website.)

Ah, so if I make a game where e.g. you smash zombies bodies with amount of blood much higher than bodies could normally contain, it's perfectly fine and family friendly? ^^'
(I was trying to think of something more gorrific and such, but I'd rather not endanger people of soft heart and great imagination)

Somehow, I feel I shouldn't be surprised, considering how many times I've seen cases where cutting body into pieces is considered much more appropriate for younger audience than even a slightest suggestion of girl's nipple or something. Not that I think that games should be overly sexual, rather, that excessive isn't that children-friendly either.
(having said that, I don't really expect someone would make game more violent than some guy running around with a gun and shooting aliens/zombies/whatever, with the most graphic effect being blood splots; but still, it annoys me how extreme violence in games seems to be considered  much more acceptable than mild sexual materials; not that I like showing-everything-but-forbidden-parts outfits, which seem to be worn mostly by... yes, females >.<)

...apart from that, good luck with your jam, I suppose? Though I'm not really sure if it'll be that successful. O.o'

15

Ask a Question / Re: Trigger event (var+1)?

« on: September 09, 2012, 11:48:35 am »

Generally, there are three types of trigger blocks:
trigger event [something] for behavior [somebehav] in actor/scene
trigger event [something] for all behaviors in actor/scene
trigger event [something]

The first one of course requires specific behavior, and probably has slightly better performance (since you trigger it for only one behavior, rather than trying to do that for every single behavior), though compared to other parts it's often negligible. However, sometimes you have same-named events in other behaviors, or you just want to know what behaviors it refers to even after looking at the logic after a few months, so that's where it would be more practical.

The second one can be generally used when someone is lazy, though I actually find it pretty useful and often use it for cases where it's not assumed what this trigger will apply to; for example, in some system from long time ago I made the system where adding new commands for dialogues would be flexible thanks to such triggers; if dialogue encountered e.g. "Wait()", event called "Wait" would be triggered for all behaviors, many of which would be containers for such commands.
But yes, generally it's pretty useful when you don't really want to remind yourself how that behavior was called, or when you need flexibility.

Both of the above can accept text arguments! Generally, there's probably some index of events somewhere in memory where they can be found by their names, and the two block above take such name as argument, whether it would be "MyEvent", ["Click" + [value]] or [MyEventAttribute].
The third block, however, accepts only input typed by hand! It provides a "quick" way to refer to that event, where it's not "some variable text name you search for", but rather a fixed function call. The difference between the earlier two and this one can be seen in code preview; the first two will have parameter as a text argument, the third one will have it typed as TEH FREAKIN LIVING CODE!!1!1

So yes, if you want to input text variable (which is the case with "Click" + [number], definitely!), rather than a fixed function call, you use one of the two blocks above!
Also, keep in mind that it'll only refer to events being precisely "Custom Events", not e.g. mouse-clicking events called "Click1", "Click2" and such in behavior editor.
(not that I assume you would think so, but it's better to be safe here )