AmpedRobot's Forum Posts

  • darksunpictures.com/public/More_touch_tests.zip

    I was trying to track 2 touches explicitly (because there is a lot of implicit stuff going on in the other one).

    This one fails when you hold the second touch (which becomes the first touch then) and then try to do another second touch.

    Can anyone assist with this?

    I was trying to do it with flags initially, but I got lost in the logic, so I did it while counting the blue and cyan squares on screen (the two different touchpoints).

    I still may redo it in the fashion of the first provided capx.

    This is just a learning experience.

    Interestingly, this one becomes unstable when you move line 60 past line 68.

    Can anybody tell me why?

    [Also, the "I am not a robot" captcha strikes right to my core.]

  • How would I make this addition?

    Second touch dragged onto controls also affects controls.

    I tried to program this as:

    -it's not new touch

    -beacon is touched (as the first touch?)

    -is overlapping controls

    or

    else is not started on control

    is not new touch

    or

    -Has Touch 2

    -beacon is touched

    -is overlapping controls

    But none of it's working.

    --

    I'm new to this succinct form of programming with a lot going on implicitly.

    I think I understand the logic tree and what's going on, but modifying it has not proven easy.

  • > The game all of a sudden started struggling with a very noticeable slowdown ... cpu utilization is only about 30% max

    If the framerate is dropping with only modest CPU usage, that suggests it's bottlenecked on rendering in the GPU hardware. That's a hardware limitation, rather than being anything to do with the software, so even switching to a different tool won't help if your game does the same thing with the GPU. Lots of people blame us for every problem they have even if it's nothing to do with us...

    No, that part is fine (I fixed it with fewer stars). I wanted to test on the cheapest most available phone in the U.S.

    It's this random, rendering blackout glitch in the beginning of the 7th layout that only seems to happen when you run the other layouts for a while, listening to the music, that bothers me, and that happens on any device, even the laptop I'm currently using, and it was happening on high end graphics workstations I used to use before as well.

  • Black Screens are almost exclusively WebGl/ram related.

    But how do you fix in translation?

    If it's ram, then what some browser glitch, because it's swamped with too much ram usage from music streaming/layout switching?

    klabundee

    And, you're right I goofed about the memory, but still as I said the game doesn't use that much and most phones have 1 to 2 GB easy and games that use way more.

    Check this out:

    "Back at our company, Q42, we evaluated the current state of Numolition. The core gameplay was good enough be released, which felt really good. What didn’t feel good were the rendering glitches and performance on some devices. Even though most people at Q42 had pretty new Android models and we weren’t doing anything crazy in the code, we wanted the game to run a bit more smoothly than it was."

    smashingmagazine.com/2014/04/rebuilding-an-html5-game-in-unity

    Anybody know someone with good references who could port a C2 game into Unity? How long would it take? Couldn't offer any upfront money right now. How much would they want on the back end?

    I was thinking maybe there was some way to take the HTML 5 export into Unity, but it does not seem to be a simple path at all.

    I might do a Craig's list ad for this at some point soon, but I wouldn't trust anybody unless they had very good verifiable video game company references and then again I would start off with a few tests to make sure they could do it.

    Also, could all of C2's libraries/effects be translated? My game does not really use anything fancy other than the Warp and Water Ripple effects, which I believe are WebGl, and not sure if those can be readily translated into Unity with C2 settings.

  • I'm only posting this because I can't figure out why my 7th layout is glitching.

    It never glitches when you play it solo....only when it's the nth, nth, nth layout, and it's the friggin Credits Sequence and it only happens in translations.

    So, the bug seems to be completely random, it's a blackout in the beginning with a random interval of about 5-15 seconds and it only seems to happen when you run the preceding layouts for a while, listening to the music.

    I even remade all the assets in it from scratch to exclude corruptions.

    So, this is really, really makes me think it's some quirk of browser architecture (exactly what Radical Panda was saying) and/or JavaScript instability (what reputable company makes their games in JavaScript?), and, yes, I'm upset.

  • Ashley

    I remember once Ashley posted a thread claiming that C2 can easily handle 75,000 sprites on screen at a time.

    I looked at that and said, "Damn, impressive! Construct 2 is the program for me."

    I know now that this is completely false because it was a little test, showing one little function in isolation, without all the other features a typical game has, like music for example, so it was completely mis-leading.

    The true limit, at least for my current game seems to be way less than 1,000.

    This became very obvious when doing the Android build after I added decent sound track (the file wasn't that big).

    The game all of a sudden started struggling with a very noticeable slowdown, so I had to reduce the number of spawning stars to maintain a normal frame rate. There are no memory leaks in the capx, cpu utilization is only about 30% max, and the coding for something so simple is as good as it gets.

    It made the game look better than anything (since I had so much going on), so I kept the original stars with their deep parallax effect for the rank table.

    But could this have anything to do with the browser architecture?

    It's not the cell phone for sure, because even the cheapest Android phones from best buy now have 16 to 32 GB memory and the game only uses about 136 megs for the main portions (200+ for the cinematic).

    So, Ashley's decision to use the browser architecture as the main component for his engine (as opposed to properly interpreting into C or C++) had nothing to do with the demand for browser games (maybe from poor kids in Vietnam? But you're not going to monetize those...), but to lessen the programming workload on himself, next to 0, so he could leach from existing programming/updating efforts. And if that's the best that could be done given the small user base, that's the best that could be done, but at least he could have been upfront about it, as opposed to keeping so many things to himself.

    We were never informed, for example, that there is no expansion file capability with C2 and C3? for Google Play, so users are limited to ridiculous sub-100 mb capxs where the operating system in the Android build ends up eating most of the space.

    So why claim the product can be anything more than for simple proto-typing?

    And the little stable or mostly stable games you could make with it can hardly compete with what's out there.

    And as opposed to all these false posts claiming "Ashley's a genius", way too busy to deal with our problems, or even post code examples, then there's Ashley's own admission about Construct Classic (back when it interpreted into C) that only portions of the code worked properly, so he couldn't do it right even back then.

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  • Has anybody noticed this as well?

    I'm pretty sure something weird is going on because I recoded this layout from scratch 3 times, even renamed all the functions, so there can't be any possible conflicts, and respliced it in, into working capxs several times and always the same results.

    I know I said it was the third layout before, but I was wrong. It's the 7th.

    To give you an idea I have been using multiple sound tracks for a while now in my capx (loading and unloading since this seems to have been fixed [with no overt announcement]).

    And this never ever happens in the browser versions of the game, only in translations, Node webkit preview, Xbox translation, Android, etc.

    Could this be what Radical Panda was talking about? That the browser gets overloaded/confused and these things happen when you start to get too fancy?

    Of course, I can't post the entire capx for examination (it's about 4,000 lines) or even that layout as it has some proprietary effects invented by me (no special plugins), but after like thousands of plays, this is the only thing that does not appear to be working consistently.

    Some people have also complained about touch not working too great in Android builds, even on simple menu selections (I have experienced this as well occasionally).

    And of course the Xbox exporter/login feature coding is completely broken in C2.

    I don't know if it works in C3.

    --

    Help Construct 2 turned me into a programmer and I never wanted to be one!

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  • AllanR

    How would I integrate a deadzone into this? Meaning the Beacon only updates position, IF NOT ON THE PLAYERSHIP (if pressing on screen outside touch controls [leaving everything else alone]).

    Basically, trying to prevent God mode with this because touching ship near center works much faster with the turning (some players are crafty.)

    I realize this may involve a pretty extensive revamp of the logic given the else statements.

    So far my attempts at inserting an overlap condition on the Touchpoint via another Boolean instance variable such as PassingOverShip and testing the overlap have proven unsuccessful.

    --

    Nvm, figured it out!

    Had a weird old collision polygon.

  • AmpedRobot

    I hear your frustration... making a bulletproof multi-touch interface is definitely a very advanced function in C2 - and that is not C2's fault. It gives you the tools to do it. It is up to you to define what the touches mean to the game.

    Rather than use an array, I like to create a sprite object for each active touch. Then you use those to track where the touch is, what it is touching, what it can do, how to handle over-lapping controls, etc...

    I re-created your project using the bare minimum elements from yours, and my standard multi-touch method. I put in as many comments as I could, so I hope it makes sense. I had to add a couple instance variables to the beacon so only one touch could try to control it at a time...

    any touch that does not start on a control, or is not controlling the beacon is tracked, but ignored. So this version will work with any number of touches.

    you can download my version here: http://www.rieperts.com/games/forum/touch_test.capx

    Update 1: oh, yeah - normally I would have the TouchPoint sprite invisible, but I left it visible so you can see them for testing purposes...

    Update 2: Another thing - I put the controls in a Family, so you can do one test to see if a new touch is meant to update controls, or to try to move the beacon. Any other controls added should also be added to the family...

    alright, last update: I copied the code to move the ship and beacon from your file, but normally I would have the controls on a non-movable HUD layer (Parallax 0,0), and make the layer the ships are on scroll around (rather than moving all the objects individually). To do that I would create a camera object (with Scroll To) on the game layer and move that as necessary... You probably know that - I realize you were just testing touch.

    Thank you. Very impressive. I am glad it was my lack of understanding of the provided features (though not necessarily my own fault given the poor documentation/lack of examples), not a failing of Construct 2's functionality. And I knew my post was clear enough.

    This is exactly what I was looking for.

    I have a super multi-touch version here too:

    darksunpictures.com/public/touch_tests_orig.zip

    which glitches when you release fingers too fast, but works in sequence.

    Since yours doesn't glitch, I'm sure the answer is in there somewhere.

    Unfortunately, I'm operating on like 1 hour of sleep in 3 days right now, given my poor shared living situation, so I'll have to wait a few days until I can get some sleep before I can study your capx thoroughly.

    I am glad you are around on these forums.

    And had something like this been included for example as a link with the touch object documentation in the Construct 2 manual, it would have made Construct 2 look like a million bucks.

  • Maybe you should go back to Kindergarten and learn how to read. I did not ask about any joysticks.

  • Hello (assuming there is still anybody on here).

    Looks pretty barren.

    Crickets chirp.

    ...

    ...

    !!!

    Anyway this may be my last post considering how things are going with Construct or maybe I'll still use it for prototyping as things go by who knows.

    As some of you know I'm far from new.

    I pretty much finished a 2D game from scratch, but I have no money for advertising or spiking, so I'm pretty much dead in the water.

    Anyway, as part of finishing a new version of Dark Sun, I was redoing the touch controls and as usual I'm having a devil of a time with something that's supposed to be simple.

    Basically, I need some multi-touch (for the aimer/the red square to work at a minimum as a second touch and not show up on the touch controls).

    Problem is all the touch coding objects and lack of coding examples. You have no idea what overlaps or what is actually needed in what coding schema, so you end up wasting days with "exploratory programming" with someone else's software that was touted as "no programming experience required" in the first place.

    Anyway, I'm enclosing a capx.

    It's pretty messy given all the things I tried, but all the elements should be in there for a fix, if you've figured it out, assuming you're on here o rare Construct 3 user (this is a Construct 2 file btw). I'm not paying for Construct 3 as I still haven't made back the money from the Construct 2 license and I got no help in marketing from the founder other than flames.

    Anyway, at one point, the multi-touch tracking code for the aimer worked, if touched your fingers nicely in sequence, and then took them off in sequence. The TouchID tracking would glitch though if you took away all fingers too fast and suddenly the cursor would wind up in the upper left corner for no apparent reason. That was a fancy version I was trying. I made jury rigged fix which worked for the most part with all fingers released, but it would still glitch occasionally if they were released too fast. How is that for a testimonial.

    Anyway, I realized I did not need all that for the game, so I was trying to switch to a simpler, 2 touch tracking version, to make sure ****the touch controls worked, and the aimer/red cross sprite would not appear on them as 1st or 2nd touch, if another touch was already in place,**** but after wasting 2 days on this algorithm torture, I'm throwing up my hands.

    I did read the only multi-touch tutorial out there by some panda (not the founder), but it's not helpful here as I'm using more controls.

    Anyway, if anybody has trouble following, I'll clean up the capx tomorrow.

    Basically, I had to add a whole bunch of sprites outside the 2 small touch controls (green and blue squares) as the idea was to be able to turn the ship by aiming with one finger on them, WHILE using touch control to move it with another, as opposed to some jerky movement where you have to stop one control to engage another.

    Anyway here's the capx:

    darksunpictures.com/public/touch_tests.zip

    The problem is all the different touch objects, touch start, touch end, in touch, has touch and no clear methodology on how to use them and where there is overlap, too much coding or glitches. It's basically just thrown out there. "Here! You do something with it."

    That's great. That's where I lose my hair with hours of needless "exploratory programming".

    Anyway, there's some crazy unsafe warning here, but believe me the file is completely safe, so you have to save that address and paste separately in a new window.

    Or how about this one?

    When you set a sprite's bullet speed to 0 via an event, while maintaining all other variables, like acceleration, it does not even travel on the correct angle (there is a 90 degree offset for no reason). You have to disable and enable the bullet behavior, but no don't set the speed to 0, which should do the same thing.

    Again, changing speed should have NOTHING to do with angle. How is that for attention to detail?

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    This wasn't meant to be a troll thread even though a discussion of this type typically invites trolls, either through lack of experience or dummy Ashley accounts.

    Look, C2 is great prototyping software, but it has a HUGE way to go in terms of user friendliness and founder attitude.

    Anybody who has used C2 for a few years or has tried to make anything but the simplest of games will inevitably know this and run into these issues.

    I'm just very upset a lot of these things weren't widely advertised up front.

    C2 has HUGE limitations in terms of being a final product.

    And as far as there being successful games using C2, I HIGHLY doubt that.

    Millions of free downloads means nothing in terms of ad revenue and click farms.

    Just Google C2 "sound not working" as an example and see what pops up.

    I could list a ton of other unresolved issues that would make everybody scratch their heads as to why they even bothered with this software to begin with.

    But ask anybody. C is the way to go for video games because it's as close as it gets to machine language in terms of stability.

    You try to make even more than 4 layouts in C2, the 4th layout will glitch, frequently, doesn't matter how many times you recode it from scratch using different functions names, etc.

    This guy is extremely blaze because he's never truly done a complex game (except for the silly examples) and he wants to brush all the issues under the carpet or wants to prey on inexperienced dreamers or most likely both.

    Google "Construct 2 is a scam", you will find a lot of useful information, a lot of which I agree with because it;s just true.

    People, if indeed these are real people, who "jump" to C2's rescue typically do not have enough experience with using all of its so called features.

    You can't even have more than 1 music track. Where is that advertised?

    You can't use expansion files for Google Play and the packaging/load with the browser wrapper eats up most of the 100 megs allowed. Where is that advertised?

    There are vritually NO CODE examples for the really useful stuff like Xbox exporting which the company would dare stand by and virtually no code examples for anything else. "Oh, yeah. The founder is too busy. You guys just do it on your own. Huh!"

    You can't make an Xbox game because the Xbox login does not work. There is a Javascript equivalent but the founder in his wisdom can't make it work and the additions should properly be done in C.

    In my opinion (and many others), the founder is very dishonest which is why there is a huge lashback against this "product" now.

    Well, yeah, that's what I said, this is basically restating my statement.

    My point is, not every game starts as a platformer, so you position your sprites facing up.

    It would be nice to be able to set the sprite up w/ 1 click, so you DON'T have any rude awakenings in later programming, if you've done a zillion animations for each sprite before going to step 2.

    And lerp is what lerp is, I was commenting on ease of use and lack of documentation. This program purports to be easy to use and unless someone gets really brainy, they will not discover these things and they WILL have shitty code.

    This is a very blaze attitude on the part of the founder. No coding experience needed? Ha! If he really wanted to make this user friendly, something would be written up on this decimal nonsense or it would be automatically taken care of, with a more advanced option for other users. Otherwise, why would someone with no coding experience even bother to test this w/ text boxes? They'd just program this away and then wonder: "Gee, C2 is friggin slow. I wonder why."

    It's not a feeling about C. It's a fact. Check out my Xbox Live Publishing thread and a zillion other threads on similar issues. Somehow the words "Prototyping Software - Not Meant To be A Final Product for Anything, But the Simplest of Browser Games" seem to have gotten lost.

    And if you start making exporters, you are really implying C2 can be a final product for a lot of things, which is a blatant falsehood considering how unstable it is and how many bugs it has, many of which the founder in his blaze attitude refuses to investigate. I wonder how much of a user base C2 still has judging the activity on the forums (next to none, not counting the fake downloads, etc.)

    Sure design your software in whatever, but make sure it compiles properly to some type of C for the end game (and not "interpret to C" which the founder himself has admitted only sporadically worked in Construct Classic.)

    I'm running into ridiculous issues while using this software, but I just accepted them for now because I got so much time invested into learning this product.

    Is there a way to change official sprite angle (the little arrow on the sprite) to 270 degrees without having to flip the sprite in the animation so one object rotates properly to another?

    No idea why the default is not 270 degrees and it makes me and probably a lot of newbes go through all this nonsense.

    If there isn't, now I have to adjust like 6 different sprite animations because they won't properly rotate towards an object. How is that for ease of use?

    Also, if you are a nebe and haven't tested this, everything that uses lerp for movement or angle rotation goes through a ridiculous number of decimals even when the sprite has ostensibly stopped, so you need test in between conditions to shortcircuit that or you wind up with sloppy ridiculously and needlessly slow code. How is that for ease of use?

    In my opinion this product is written remarkably sloppy without almost any regard for the end user or his troubles.

    And P.S. All video game software should be written in C, C#, or C++. Everything else is garbage and will always run into a ton of trouble.

    Stuck with it for now!