AnD4D's Forum Posts

  • Probably testing and level design for me.

    To make sure I have no bugs, I test test test. This means playing the game over and over, and eventually getting really good at the game. I then struggle to make balanced levels because I feel they're too easy, so make them harder. I then introduce a friend to the game, and they struggle like crazy. They pass the controls over to me, and I do it first time.

    I'm approaching 50 levels on my current game, with another 50 to go. Really starting to struggle to make anything I consider fun. I wish I had another person to work with.

  • Bl4ckSh33p - Shape.ShadowCaster.Height+1

    It's the object, not the light.

  • Just to answer my question from earlier in case anyone else is searching... the new shader that Ashley created DOES require WebGL, so anyone working on a platform that doesn't allow WebGL can NOT use this.

    Back to the drawing boards

  • Shame... oh well, as long as it's possible, I'll do it that way. I just didn't want to have the exact same track twice where I could have it once. Waste of storage space.

  • spongehammer Yeah, sadly that won't work for what I want to do. I want the game to rewind at points, and would like the music to reverse as well.

  • I've had a quick go at it, and it looks like music will play slowly, but once it gets to zero and into the minus' it won't play any more.

    Anyway of pulling this off?

  • aruche Back at it again, I see. Last 2 draws... oh well, I give up. The devs and mods don't seem to care, so I don't know why I'm letting it get to me.

  • Naji - I disagree with you

    I loved Game Dev Story, and played it for hours on end. Game Dev Tycoon was just hard, and became boring. The best game I made was 5/10... and I went bankrupt. I'm sure it encourages multiple playthroughs... but I can't be bothered with it.

  • What is wrong with the arrays? How do people expect them to work?

  • I wish I could open up arrays and fill in initial data visually rather than through events, but I rarely have many issues with arrays.

  • Ashley - Yeah, I figured I should have added the correct image. I couldn't remember when I'd saved the image, so used another example.

    As you said, it's probably the range, but you can see in this example that the light sprite is pretty far away from the walls.

    Might it be possible to allow us to set the extrude distance ourselves? If I'm making a game for an iPad, I'll want it pretty large, but if I'm making a lower res game I want it smaller. If that's too tricky to add in, then not to worry. I imagine if it's off screen it won't cause many problems with processing anyway?

    The shader for the next build... will I be able to use that without WebGL? Unfortunately I can't use WebGL for my next project.

    I've just tried out your other method so I could better visualise it, and while I'm getting solid black shadows now where no light reaches, sadly it's still not the effect I want. Personally, I just want solid white for light, and solid black for shadow. I imagine I'll be able to do that next build.

    This is with 34% opacity on each light. For some reason I'm getting pitch black shadows where there should be light... but in any case, I don't need transparent shadows, so it doesn't worry me too much. With this new effect you've created, will other people be able to get transparent lights? It doesn't sound like it, but in any case I intend on adding a fall off sprite that overlays the light source so it will slowly fall off into darkness.

    Can you tell what they made this light system using? http://ncase.me/sight-and-light/ Is it HTML5? Flash? It appears to run great in a browser, and the code appears to be open source. I don't understand how this all works, so I'm not sure whether or not the same system is possible... but it appears to work with multiple light sources brilliantly!

  • I'm afraid I don't see any improvement in the lighting in the last beta release

    I'm still seeing random lighting appear when I get to one side of the screen, and I still can't get decent looking multiple light sources.

    — Are these this like to improve over the coming months? I've just continued a game that requires these 2 in place. If it's unlikely, I'm happy to shelve the project again in favour of another I'm working on!

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  • Should I take it everyone agrees, and has nothing else to add? <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing">

    I'm able to proceed with my game at the moment by using just 1 light, but ideally I'd like to use at least 3 in each level.

    Is this what our light and shadow plugin is based on, or is this more advanced?

    http://ncase.me/sight-and-light/

  • *Please note, this thread is for discussion of the plugin and improvement/recommendations. Last time I did a thread like this, it stretched on for 50 pages, as people started using it for troubleshooting their own projects.

    Hey there! Just wants a quick post about peoples concerns with the new light/shadow feature so far.

    A while back I shelved the development of a pretty fun game purely because it relied on the shadow features granted by the paster plugin. It looked and played great, but I had issues in regards to the speed. You had to have a pretty decent machine to run what otherwise was a very simple game... and sadly, that just wasn't worth while.

    In any case, since the feature has come back to me in a form that is faster (can be used on mobiles), I thought I would pick the project back up... but very quickly shelved it again, and here's why.

    Multiple Light Sources

    My game relies on multiple light sources. Before, I was able to touch a button on the keyboard and spawn in new light sources using the same light over and over. With this one, I notice that for each light source you wish to introduce, you need to have a new object (ShadowLight1,ShadowLight2,ShadowLight3). If you don't, then the light sources appear to cancel each other out, and will only appear where they are zero shadows at all.

    *EDIT - Turns out you do not need multiple objects. My bad!

    It looks like you need to set the transparency to 50% or so if you have 2 lights to avoid each one washing the other out... but that's not of use to me sadly. I want anything in shadow to be completely dark, and anything in light to be completely light. I'm amazed that shadows are more dominant than light with this plugin.

    This is an example with 3 lights with 33% opacity.

    This is an example with the same 3 lights with 100% opacity.

    As far as I can tell, it's impossible for me to get the effect I want. If I was to set this up in real life, using real lights, I would be able to see the middle of the area without any issues.

    Light Colours

    I'm not sure why anyone would be interested in having different coloured shadows. Who know, maybe they will. It doesn't interest me though. In my original game, when a green light hit a red light, I'd get a yellow light. Looked cool.

    Seeing as this was almost a year ago, I can't remember exactly how this was achieved... but very well may have simply been an addition effect added to a coloured sprite. In any case, I suppose there's no reason not to have it, but like I said... it doesn't interest me, as I don't see the benefit.

    Shadow Length

    I want my shadows to go on forever. If there's no light, I want darkness. For some reason, if I have my level with 1 light, without height, without WebGL soft edging, without radius... I still end up with random glitches similar to, but not exactly like this:

    Final Thoughts

    I love the fact that we're getting this. This has been on the top of my list for about a year and a half, so I'm really happy we're seeing it being developed now. I'm not interested in putting anyone down, as I really am happy... but I just wanted to gauge peoples feedback on it to see what is impossible to change, and what we can really make use of. I'm hoping this plugin is actually something that can be improved on, and isn't just a simple drop in plugin.

    Anyone else have anything to add?

  • Is it possible to recognize whether or not you are in shadow or light via events?