a small series of questions

Hi all - Just started using construct, and am very impressed so far. Thanks so much for making such a cool app.

I have a 3 questions regarding implementation and usage.

1: SCROLLING BACKGROUNDS

I'm trying to set up a large vertically scrolling background made up of large bitmap chunks, however , once I stack a few large images vertically, I cannot scroll the layout screen up to add more bitmap pieces above the others.

It also seems the image size limitation is 2048 high, can this be changed?

so, in short I was wondering if there was a way of either scrolling the layout screen to see everything, or wether there were any other ways of visually placing a complex map of large pieces together.

2: DIRECTSOUND

Can directsound play any other music formats than MP3?

3: UNIFIED SCALING

at present, you can only scale by sprites by pixel, not percentage, could anyone recommend a way or code example of scaling an object evenly in X and y?

Thanks so much for your time.

with regards to the scrolling, there are two things you must first understand: window size and layout size

in the application properties, you can set the window size

in the layout properties you can set the layout size

so setting a layout size larger than the window size will allow you to scroll the layout provided that you have created events to do so

setting a layout size smaller than the window size will however will display the layout in the top left corner of the window and only objects that are in the layout (even just a tiny bit) will appear in the window, anything else will not display

hi vinny, thnks for the layout tip, howver its still not really working

say my window size (this is the size of the display at runtime, correct?) is 640x480

i create a large object that is 640 wide and 1000 high

then tell this object, every frame to move DOWN 1 pixel, to create a scrolling image that passes through the window.

the 1st thing that is seen appears at the TOP of the layout area, I cant expand the layout UPWARDS to allow me to position more objects..

i could always send you a small.cap so you can see for yourself..

hope that explains the situation better

what is your layout size?

are you trying to scroll the display or the object?

when you want to expand the layout upwards are you trying to do this in the construct or at runtime?

application properties

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t294/vinnyang/appProp.jpg

layout properties

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t294/vinnyang/layoutProp.jpg

actions for display settings

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t294/vinnyang/display.jpg

if this doesn't help, you can send the cap file to sensationsoftkgp@gmail.com

You could position them at runtime or arrange them in the layout editor lower than you want, select them all and move them up. That should work.

I thought about this, but arranging them , then moving it back up prevents me from ever editing them again, should I choose to adjust something!

ok, here's some images that explain whats up.

http://pic16.picturetrail.com/VOL699/25 ... 152139.jpg

http://pic16.picturetrail.com/VOL699/25 ... 152136.jpg

i'm not scrolling the the background to match the player because the background is supposed to scroll independently..

hope this makes things a bit clearer

Since both images are the same sprite, you can give the sprite a private variable, set it to 1 on the first and 2 on the second. At the start of layout, set their positions, with set y to 0-(sprite.value('variablename')*1000)

no, that's jus an example, there would be a great many more different images, with overlays and underlays

Try zooming out with the mousewheel. Does that work?

no, there is no zoom for the layout screen, and besides, zooming would make pixel alignment difficult.

Well, you could align them by setting their positions manually via the properties panel, and reselecting them once they're offscreen with the layers panel.

Here's a zip with a couple of examples of how you might do the scrolling:

http://www.mediafire.com/?6txxtf4ymzz

In vertscroll.cap the layout size is 320x4000. The red box is set to "Center view on me" and both the box and the ship are moved 1 pixel up every tick. The star sprite is a 320x1000 repeatable tile, and there are four of them. The star sprites themselves don't move.

In stars.cap the layout size is 320x480. The stars are much smaller tiles and are created at runtime just off the top of the screen and moved down 2 pixels every tick for layer 1 and 1 pixel every tick for layer 2 to get a parallax effect. The ship itself doesn't move (unless the player moves it, of course).

Hope this helps.

deadeye is right, you should use a tall layout rather than trying to push things a long way off the layout upwards. Also, DirectSound can play any formats Windows Media Player can, so not just MP3 but if you have the filters for it OGG and such. But remember all your end users would need the Windows Media Player OGG filters if you did something like that.

ahaa! thanks guys! - basically the object that does "center view on me" pushes the camera to the right place?, once it's placed , I can use whichever means I need to get everything scrolling!

thankyou so much guys!

re: Mp3 - I thought there were legal issues regarding the use of it in commercial apps without a licence....