General App Functionality Questions (Issues?)

Hi there ? new user with many questions. I apologize if these have been asked and answered before ? I have searched the forums, and didn?t find what I was looking for.

First off, great application! I use and have used quite a few different ?make your own game apps?. This one stacks up well with the others. I love the interface!

General:

Is there a way to script the events and actions instead of using the UI? I don?t think so, just asking. This would be a great addition.

Animations:

Is there a way to indicate a color to be used as a transparent color when importing a frame or sprite strip? Currently I am using two applications to do this. First one to draw the sprite(s), second one to set a color as transparent, and save as a gif.

Platform Vs. Physics:

For my test first game to get a feel for this, I went with a platform. I set the ?floors? as solid, and gave my player the platform behavior. I wanted my player to be able to throw objects, and those objects to have the physics behavior. But ? The objects with the physics behavior fell right through my solid floor objects.

Do I have to:

A.     Update the ?floor? objects to have the physics behavior, and set them to immovable? As well as set my player with the physics behavior, and control his movements manually? (Otherwise he falls right through the floors if he is platform, and the floors are physics.)

B.     Create a floor object with the physics behavior and place it over the floor that is set to solid, and leave my player as platform? I have noticed that setting an object with both physics ? (immovable) and solid behaviors does not work.

Player object passing through floor objects.

In this case - the player is platform, and the floor objects are solid. I added a crawl animation to my player, and have him crawling under a low floor. But, if I stand up, the player gets stuck in the floor object above. Is there a way to not allow the player sprite to go through the floor (solid) sprite? To fix this, I created an invisible object and placed that in the space between the low floor and the floor. Essentially the space that the player is crawling through. In an event, when the user is overlapping this object, I force the animation to be one of the crawl animations, basically not allowing the player to stand up. This works, but was wondering if there was an easier way.

That?s it for now. Sure I will have many more to come. And I am definitely planning on purchasing this very soon.

Thanks in advance!

Regarding physics vs platform behaviour:

Although I haven't tested this in C2 yet, I think if you give the floor a 'solid' behaviour, as well as a 'physics/immoveable' behaviour you'll essentially get a platform that the player (using the platform behaviour) can walk on that also interacts with the physics objects.

From what I understand C2 behaviours are being designed to work with each other more effectively than in Classic, so platforms should be usable with physics objects without any real problems.

In Classic I had to fiddle with the collision masks to get both behaviours to work, and it probably would have been easier to just use 2 separate objects for platforms and physics - but with C2, I think you should be good to go.

Having said all this, I'll go test it to see what it does.

edit: yep, it seems to be as easy as I thought it would be... Physics/Platformer

Animations:

Is there a way to indicate a color to be used as a transparent color when importing a frame or sprite strip? Currently I am using two applications to do this. First one to draw the sprite(s), second one to set a color as transparent, and save as a gif.

Maybe that's the answer?

http://www.scirra.com/forum/how-do-i-make-transparencies_topic45256_post283329.html#283329

Thanks for the quick reply. And I think you're right. I must have done something wrong initially. I just created an app with a floor object, and set it with both physics and solid behaviors. I created my player object with platform, and created an object with just physics.

Both the player and the object stayed on the floor object. Hmm - I'll go back to the original test app and see what I did wrong.

Thanks for your help!

Thanks! Not sure how I didn't get that post while I was searching. I'll just continue to use Paint and Macromedia Fireworks. Not that big of a deal saving an entire sprite sheet with a transparent color.

Is there a way to script the events and actions instead of using the UI?

No, it's events only in Construct 2. You could have a look at coding plugins and behaviors in the SDK, but that's generally pretty involved compared to snippets of script.

s there a way to indicate a color to be used as a transparent color when importing a frame or sprite strip?

No - Construct 2 supports full alpha channels so I didn't think it was necessary, but this has been requested a lot recently, so I guess other software hasn't caught up yet. I'd better add it - it's on my todo list now!

latform Vs. Physics

Physics objects only interact with other physics objects, they ignore other objects completely even if they have the solid behavior. You might be interested in this tutorial on Physics.

Solid and Physics on a single object should work OK though.

layer object passing through floor objects

Generally it's up to your game to make sure the player doesn't get 'stuck' inside solids. The platform behavior won't control your animations or events for you - it'll just try to figure out how to respond to its surroundings, and if it's stuck in a solid it can't really do anything. Your solution sounds like a good idea - invisible detectors are common in games.

Hope that helps!

Wow. The responses here have been amazing! Thank you all very much!

Ashley - as far as the scripting goes, I was only thinking along the lines of - actions for example - being able to type out something like:

Player.SpawnObject(<object>, <layer>, <image point>);

or

Player.Platform.MaximumSpeed = 100;

or even

Player.Platform.SetmaximumSpeed(100);

Instead of using the UI. Scripting that basically does the same thing as the UI action building does.

Again - Not needed. Everything is there. And sorry to all that I didn't see the platform/physics tut. Going to go back and check what I did wrong in the original game where I tried giving the floor both solid and physics behaviors.

Thanks again, everyone!

Physics objects only interact with other physics objects, they ignore other objects completely even if they have the solid behavior.

Of course that's what I meant to say.