May I first say you guys (especially lucid) are my fuggin' superheroes for being so damned helpful! You blow away the Clickteam community : D
that's just how we roll here at scirra
never been to clickteam, or used mmf or whatever their thing is
now, ON TO THE KATAMARI! : O
I just noticed now, that the katamari video you posted and were talking about was a 2d version. I hadn't watched it
I think you should aim higher than a better looking version of the 2d one, you should make it like a 2d version of the original, which would be much cooler and interesting looking
I played around a little with the katamari thing
unfortunately I don't have alot of time to explain too much
and it's getting really ugly(the code)
but I will list the basic changes I made and you can investigate and analyze and ask questions
the level is larger now
I made the little guys you pick up not physics objects, they weren't in the original katamari. Also, I made the sticking system based on a canvas. it's cleaner this way, and when you have hundreds of objects it won't be tracking them all at all times, also, when your katamari reaches a whole new zoom level, like the original you will be able to draw the same katamari and trash, and forget about all the objects that are sticking to it. you'll notice there's a strange blurring effect that happens to the canvas over many uses, so the older stuff stuck to you gets blurry. I'm not sure why it's doing this, but there are ways around it, even if we don't figure out why it's doing that.
also, I made it so the controls change torque, not angular velocity, this means that the ball won't just keep spinning faster even when it should be slowed down by physocs, you're not telling it how fast to roll, you're telling it how hard to roll
also, I put limits on the speed, so if it's spinning too fast it won't add any more angular force
then I set it up so the physics ball get's 0.5 pixels larger length and width for every piece stuck on. I still think eventually you should add the ellipse thing, but this at least illustrates the basic concepts. all that weird temp variable setting and destroying the physics and remaking it, is to keep it from colliding with the ground when it gets 0.5 pixels bigger. you can press spacebar now to view the physics ball
finally, there was a problem with the growing physics ball and collisions, o things would start connecting to further and further invisible points away from the ball or other people stuck to it, so they looked like they were floating in an orbit of the ball. the solution is to make the canvas update it's collision mask with each new guy stuck to it. then you make it so new guys stick only if they intersect the physics ball AND the canvas. this means there's an invisible circle they are allowed to stick to, but only if they are also touching the canvas, which consists of the ball, and the guys stuck to it. they won't be able to stick to eachother in a long chain away from the ball. and they won't stick to random points in space where the invisible physics ball is.
enjoy: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1013446/katama.cap
gotta go for now,