Animmaniac's Forum Posts

  • I would also love to be able to Ctrl+G to get all the objects as one group to move them or reduce them altogether, and Shift+Ctrl+G to release the group!

    I wished this since I first used CC! And don't forget the ability to rotate them around an anchor point, and Ctrl+U is a more standard shortcut for release (ungroup).

    Also would be nice if these groups could be referenced in events like a normal object or a family. Maybe this could be implemented in C2 as a more versatile replacement for containers.

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  • I think we can learn a little by looking at other similar websites to see what works and what doesn't.

    I searched for game engines websites and found a bunch of them, then classified them according to the level of attraction and professionalism they evoke on me.

    These are the good ones:

    A,B, C, D, E, F, G

    These are the bad ones:

    H, I, J, K, L, M

    And these are in between:

    N, O, P, Q

    I currently think Scirra website is in between, that means it's not bad, and already avoided lots of atrocities of the bad ones, but there is definitely room for improvement.

    If you look at the good ones, you will notice that most of them use neutral colors. Two of them ("F" and "G") add colors through headers rather than just in content. I think they are good examples to follow.

    So for Scirra I would definitely drop the colors in the background and keep them just in the header. The blue layout image is really close in these respect. I would also remove those diagonal lines from the background since they just add "noise" and look kind of out of place. A gradient would work better than the lines, but is not really necessary.

    As for the hue, I would go for a hotter color since it conveys more excitement than a colder one. If you look at the examples, and abstract the different illustrations density, "F" is more cheering than "G". In my point of view, any color with a good portion of yellow or red in it's composition is better for growing enthusiasm (yellow>red though). So for Scirra I think the green would be a better choice than blue. But it's good to remember that there's more tints of green than the ones used.

    Other things that could be improved are the size of text, that is still too big, specially in the front page. This page in my opinion make a great use of text attributes like size, color, style, margins and column width to make it extremely readable, pleasant, and highlight titles and links to be easily found.

    Also the drop shadows could be tweaked a little or dropped completely. I think they could be either shortened in length or be more transparent ("b" and "n" are good examples of subtle shadows). Another one is the search field, that is an odd element that breaks the layout and currently is not even functional. It would be better if it integrate seamlessly in the layout in the top bar or inside the header. The text field could be smaller too.

    Those are my points, sorry if is too TLDR.

  • If you don't need a sprite to be partially lit (like just lighting only the overlapping light part) then you can make the image of your character in the dark as a separate sprite and always put it on top of the normal sprite, then change the opacity of the dark sprite according with the light intensity. The ligh intensity can be easily calculated using the distance of the sprite to the light source.

  • How can I highlight posts I haven't read? If it's not supported now, will it ever be?

    This is the most missed forum feature for me. Finding what you haven't read is really annoying without it.

  • I recommend taking a look at these:

    Semblante

    Mnemons

    Talbot's Odyssey

  • Useful tool for the Curves effect!

    I suggest limiting the random values to the range of -200 to 200 maximum, otherwise you get too wacky results. Also would be nice to have an option to load custom images.

    Nice work anyway.

  • Interesting, I had once made this same effect, but then questioned its efficiency vs. a canvas with grab layout. I settled on the Canvas. Have you tested it vs a canvas for full-screen post processing effects?

    Nice question. I just made a quick test with a 1024x768 window and got almost the same results with canvas and Apply Below. Actually the effect gives me 1 or 2 more fps, but this is negligible. The canvas also adds a little more vram, probably because it has to store its original texture. So technically, even if you stretch a 1x1 canvas in the entire layout it still will use a tiny bit more vram. Nothing to worry about.

    Based on this: just use the one you prefer most. I personally think the effect is simpler to use though.

    Anyway, I suggest people to make more tests, probably there's cases where this could not be true.

    The_Funny_Guy: I advise you to make it through events or a plugin. An effect would give lot slower results an unnecessarily narrow your possible audience to people with good graphics cards. It's so easy to implement this through events that doesn't worth it. It also would get pretty ugly near the window borders with intense shakes.

  • Allows to apply effects to every pixel below it. All preceding effects in the stack will be ignored. If applied to a layer make sure to turn off 'Transparent' on layer properties.

    Download Apply Below effect

    It doesn't have any parameters.

    This effect is useful when you want to apply effects to several layers at once or the whole screen. Just put it as the first effect in the top layer and apply all the effects you want after it.

  • Smoothen edges of color clusters similar to Eagle and 2xSaI, with scale factor and blending control. Work best with pixelart and flat shaded images.

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/depixelize-01.gif" border="0">

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/depixelize-02.gif" border="0">

    Pixelart by llshadow

    Download Depixelize effect

    Parameters:

    • Blending : Effect blending with the original upscaled image.
    • Scale Factor. Works best with integer values above 1. 2 gives maximum smoothness. Use 1 (no scale) for previously scaled images.

    For better results I recommend changing the Sampling in the Runtime Properties to Point. This effect can also be stacked multiple times to give smooth 4x+ scaling, or be applied just once with 3x+ Scale Factor resulting in rounded pixels.

    It uses a novel and simple method that I accidentally discovered, not as good as hqx family, but gives results comparable to Eagle and 2xSaI.

  • Abstract implementation of tonal curves for RGB, Red, Green and Blue channels with three fixed nodes: highlights, midtones and shadows. Can be used to adjust overall contrast or create advanced color filters.

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/curves.gif" border="0">

    Download Curves effect

    Parameters:

    • RGB Highlights : Positive values brighten overall highlights, negative values darken overall highlights.
    • RGB Midtones : Positive values brighten overall midtones, negative values darken overall midtones.
    • RGB Shadows : Positive values brighten overall shadows, negative values darken overall shadows.
    • R Highlights : Positive values tint highlights red, negative values tint highlights cyan.
    • R Midtones : Positive values tint midtones red, negative values tint midtones cyan.
    • R Shadows : Positive values tint shadows red, negative values tint shadows cyan.
    • G Highlights : Positive values tint highlights green, negative values tint highlights magenta.
    • G Midtones : Positive values tint midtones green, negative values tint midtones magenta.
    • G Shadows : Positive values tint shadows green, negative values tint shadows magenta.
    • B Highlights : Positive values tint highlights blue, negative values tint highlights yellow.
    • B Midtones : Positive values tint midtones blue, negative values tint midtones yellow.
    • B Shadows : Positive values tint shadows blue, negative values tint shadows yellow.

    Don't let the number of parameters scare you, it's simpler than it looks and it's very versatile.

  • Simple sharpen with intensity control.

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/sharpen.gif" border="0">

    Download Sharpen effect

    Parameters:

    • Intensity : Sharpen intensity.
  • Simple blur with blending control.

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/blur.gif" border="0">

    Download Blur effect

    Parameters:

    • Blending : Blur blending with the original image.
  • Apply pixelated noise with color, opacity and refresh rate control.

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/pixel_noise-02.gif" border="0">

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/pixel_noise-01.gif" border="0">

    Download Pixel Noise effect

    Parameters:

    • Seed : Seed number. Different seed values generate different noise patterns.
    • Opacity : Noise opacity.
    • Refresh : Refresh rate in frames for animated noise: x frames = new pattern . A value of 0 set it to static.
    • Red value of noise color (0-255).
    • Green value of noise color (0-255).
    • Blue value of noise color (0-255).

    The noise is not as random as I wish. I may improve the algorithm in the future.

  • Adjust Hue, Saturation and Value.

    <img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/construct/hsv.gif" border="0">

    Download HSV effect

    Parameters:

    • Hue : Hue shift in degrees (180 = opposite hues). Accept negative values.
    • Saturation : Color saturation percentage. Values bigger than 100% oversaturate colors.
    • Value : Value percentage. Adjust the "lightness".
  • I made a pixelated noise effect that allows to set the color of the noise. Coincidently I was planning to release it this week, but delayed after the forum/site redesign. You can give a look at it, I will post it soon.