Font and construct

hello guys,

i recently try to use custom font for my game and result were flat.

any idea of the constraint of the font in construct?

-Did it use the font base of the User PC or a custom folder ie: Game/font were you put your font in.

-also is there some format that construct dont like, TTF,RTF opentype and such

i'm sorry but the text object in the wiki dont give much of information

-another one , is it possible to use Bitmap font for the look of good old arcade game.

that will be cool

thangs guys,

TTF fonts should work fine - but they have to be installed in the Windows Fonts directory, Windows won't load them from any other directory, I don't think. There's a text blitter-like plugin planned, which uses textures to draw letters, but it might be a while before it turns up.

It is possible to render fonts without them being installed in any way, as we do such in openTH using some free libraries. Whether or not these are practical (and they're not) to implement into DX is another issue, but there's probably a Direct-X library out there which can render fonts on the go from a file.

Resource handling is the one area where i'm really disappointed with Construct. Only being able to load fonts from the Windows directory feels sloppy, and having resources packed into the executable isn't ideal. I know you can load resources (like images) from other locations using "AppPath +" but then you get none of the ease-of-use benefits that Construct provides, like WYSIWYG positioning.

I really hope this gets worked on in future releases, it's honestly the only thing holding me back from starting work on my project.

Sorry, one more thing. I think it odd that in the Application development part of Construct, you have objects for some standard Windows controls (like MessageBox, Button, etc) but I can't find anything to create menus! Maybe I don't know where to look?

Keep up the great work, guys!

menus arent implemented yet

Yes, resource handling needs working on, putting fonts in the .exe and then rendering from them would be excellent (though we're still not sure on how practical it is with DX).

Could you explain what you mean with regard to:

"I know you can load resources (like images) from other locations using "AppPath +" but then you get none of the ease-of-use benefits that Construct provides, like WYSIWYG positioning."

Thanks

Yes, resource handling needs working on, putting fonts in the .exe and then rendering from them would be excellent (though we're still not sure on how practical it is with DX).

Could you explain what you mean with regard to:

"I know you can load resources (like images) from other locations using "AppPath +" but then you get none of the ease-of-use benefits that Construct provides, like WYSIWYG positioning."

Thanks

In the Event creation part of a layout, you can manually load an image using "AppPath +". For example, say I have a folder called 'Game' and have my .exe in there. I then create a sub-folder called 'images' and put a file called 'pic.png' in there. In the Event editor, I can manually load that image using "AppPath + images\pic.png". I don't have Construct in front of me right now so I can't give exact details, but that's basically how it works. The downside to doing it this way, though, is that once you go back to the Layout editor you can't just drag and align that image visually because the image is only loaded when the executable runs and gets to the event.

Did that make sense? I can give more detailed info later on tonight.

Yes, you can load images at runtime. That's for flexibility, say if you take a pic via webcam or allow the user to import their sprite. There's no way to know what image a user may pic, so you obviously can't drag/resize it in the layout editor. If you want to load an image or sprite in you can do so via the Picture Editor, or animations via the Animator.

Let me know if you meant something else.

In the Event creation part of a layout, you can manually load an image using "AppPath +". For example, say I have a folder called 'Game' and have my .exe in there. I then create a sub-folder called 'images' and put a file called 'pic.png' in there. In the Event editor, I can manually load that image using "AppPath + images\pic.png". I don't have Construct in front of me right now so I can't give exact details, but that's basically how it works. The downside to doing it this way, though, is that once you go back to the Layout editor you can't just drag and align that image visually because the image is only loaded when the executable runs and gets to the event.

What is it that you're doing that you would need to manually reposition the image after it's loaded? If you gave more details on what you're trying to make there might be a solution to help you out.

And if you're taking about something common like replacing tiles or sprites within a game, then obviously the tiles or sprites would have to conform to your game specs before importing them or they wouldn't work. The objects that you've already put in the layout would still be in the same places... you're just loading different images to them. If they images don't fit then the game would look funny, sure... but that's the same for all games that let you replace sprites and such, it's not just a Construct thing.