cjbruce's Forum Posts

  • Hi Ashley

    Thank you very much for the detailed answer, I appreciate you taking the time to do this.

    I understand the issues you've described, but can't help feeling that the 'cpu usage reading' is not much use, when it is so strongly affected by other factors.

    I was worried that a lot of the behaviours were really that cpu hungry, but was confused as my game still ran 60fps.

    Thanks again!

    It is really useful in a relative sense though. If you group everything up, you can see which events are relative CPU hogs and optimize those.

    One of the goals in mobile performance optimization is to keep the CPU clock speed low, reducing heating and improving battery life. By monitoring group CPU usage, I was able to significantly reduce device heating on mobile.

  • Hello guys I'm planning how can I develop my game properly and I don't know at this point what to do:

    I want to add Spine animations to my game in C3, but at the moment this is not possible.

    So ¿What are the options?

    1. Buy Construct 2 and use the spine plugin (It seems it doesn't work too well based in reviews) and wait until they release a Spine plugin for C3, and then export the project and keep working on it.

    Cons: Need to buy Construct 2 (having already C3) and I don’t know when the spine plugin for C3 will be released.

    2. Buy construct 2 and Spriter. Start to make the game and then export the project to C3 when there is a plugin.

    Cons: Need to buy Construct 2 and Spriter. I have never used spriter. I don’t know when the spriter plugin for c3 will be released.

    3.Use another game engine that has spine better integrated.

    Cons: programming won’t be as intuitive as C2/C3.

    What are your suggestions? Are there any other options?

    Thanks for your answers it will help to solve this important question.

    I don’t know if this is an option, but is it possible to put the game on hold until the C3 screen draw API is released? It will be made available eventually, as there are a huge number of plugins that require it.

  • > Seriously, I'd make my own keyboard out of sprite frames.

    >

    Hey Newt! Yeah, I've thought about that, but I'm also looking at allowing names to be entered, which would require all the letters added. Seems like a lot of effort just to enter names JUST because the enter key and focus don't work.

    I was hoping that I was missing something basic... rather than Construct missing something basic.

    I've spent a lot of time battling this, and usually do either one of two things:

    1. Design my own keyboard.

    2. Make sure all HTML textfields are in the top half of the screen.

    The problem is that with Construct's screen scaling, browser manufacturers are too inconsistent to make sure things are always done the same way. The only surefire way to avoid these issues is to build your own keyboard.

  • I just bought Q3D a few days ago and am excited to see what I can do with it. I have seen multiple people in this thread reference a raycasting example file, but I cant seem to find in anywhere. Does anyone know where this .capx file is, or have a copy to it? I am trying to implement a drag and drop system for 3d dice on a 2d game board. I would be able to pick up the dice, and drop them in their own 'slot'. Apparently I need to cast a ray that shows the mouse XYZ in the 3d world and project it onto a 2d plane? Someone said this is covered in the example file, that's why i'm asking.

    Thanks for any info.

    I avoided raycasting from the mouse from my game for this reason. The example provided in the package is for an older version of Q3D and includes some expressions that no longer exist.

    QuaziGNRLnose, would you mind giving a quick update on how to do raycasting from screen space using V2.4?

  • Great post! It is super helpful to see what monetary success can look like on mobile.

    If you don't mind my asking, what ad networks are you using, and what sorts of ads are getting displayed?

  • So it looks like most of the high cpu usage in this case is being cause by ...

    ... updating a contdown timer textfield

    It seems strange that something so small and simple would require all this cpu usage.

    Textfields are the worst! It is up to the browser engine to draw the text every time. Consider changing this to every second, or whenever an integer value changes, and consider using a spritefont instead.

  • Hi Ashley / anyone else who might be able to help

    I just have a quick question about normal CPU usage.

    Some of the simple examples as well as some of my simple levels go up to about 90% cpu usage on iPhone SE.

    This is info I get from the remote preview profiler.

    I am getting 60 fps, but the CPU usage seems very high.

    Is this normal?

    Thank you in advance

    It is easy to max out a mobile CPU with events. I recommend creating a set of event groups called “Test Group 1”, “Test Group 2”, etc. in the event sheet, and then profiling your game. This will tell you exactly which events are taking up what percentage of the CPU, which should allow you to redesign the events to use less CPU time.

  • If you already have a host or server you can you FTPbox. Works similar like dropbox, but using your own server. Placing stuff in the folders syncs automatically to your FTP, so you can run your games directly from there. Pretty easy to set up as well.

    Only wish C3 could export directly to FTP, instead of having to download a zip, extract and move in to there.

    Thanks for pointing this out! I have been pining for a solution to this problem ever since my Dropbox public folder died. This looks perfect!

  • This is pure speculation, but wouldn't it check against the instantiated instances in that object's array, then, finding none, move on to the next line?

    I'm assuming that this would be functionally identical to having an event that runs when an object exists, but is skipped when there are no objects of that type in the current layout.

    Assuming that I am correct, I haven't had problems where these "unrun" events incurred a substantial performance hit. Maybe a few clock ticks, but not big enough to make a perceptible difference in the game.

  • I am learning Construct 3 right now to develop a game but I usually develop Business Applications. I am curious if it is possible to design business apps here as I am really enjoying the software and prefer to stick to one software if possible.

    It is possible, but certain things are really difficult without a lot of effort. I spend about 50% of my development time working on more traditional applications, and the remainder of the time working in Construct 2/3.

    I have done one major project where I built something that would typically be a standard web app entirely within Construct 2. It is called "ChemThink", and has teacher and student account management, the ability for teachers to create classes, assign tutorials, and review results of quizzes, and many more functions. Please note that this was built in Construct 2, and some of the plugins I used are not available in Construct 3. Also please note that this is an HTML5 port of a Flash app built in 1997. I kept the original teacher-drawn graphics, and Construct 2/3 are both capable of looking a lot nicer than what you see here:

    http://simbucket.com/chemthinkserver/chemthink/index.html

    Here are a few of the stumbling blocks:

    1. Scrollable lists - These are a pain to implement, as they are not hardware accelerated like they would be if you were using CSS or native scrollview/listview solutions. I used a plugin called "iScroll" which is only available for Construct 2. It is possible to do this by hand in Construct, but it will take A LOT of experimentation to get everything looking right.

    2. Button styling - You can't use native or CSS buttons. Every pixel must be drawn by hand in a separate program and imported if you want something more than colored rectangles.

    3. Masking - Masking takes a bit of work, and isn't automatic like it would be in native or CSS. There is no concept of container views, so you have to create masks manually for any pictures or text that go out of what you would otherwise build as a container view.

    For simple business apps, things that I would do in 30 seconds in Xcode (I used to develop for iOS) took me weeks to figure out in Construct 2. However, having a full video game engine meant that I could do things very simply in Construct 2 that I wouldn't even attempt when building a native iOS app or CSS-driven web app.

    In addition, POST and GET requests are dead simple compared to native. This is where Construct really shines, in my opinion.

  • tunepunk is an expert on this, so I will defer to his experience. I used C2 and C3 for about six months with a Surface Pro 4, but despised the tablet because of poor battery life, the floppy, bouncy keyboard, and the small, mushy trackpad. I couldn’t get into using the pen, as it was so much slower and clunkier than a mouse/trackpad and a keyboard. By the end of six months, I decided that both my Dell Inspiron and my MacBook Air were better for C2 and C3 respectively, and my iPad was a better tablet, but I don’t use the iPad for C3. I gave the Surface Pro 4 back two months ago, and haven’t regretted the decision.

  • Psychokiller1888 Nice work! Thank you very much for the great effort you have put into this. Are there any examples how the controllers are made with C3? Any basic setups available?

    I don’t have a C3 example, but here is a link to a controller with lots of options built in C2. It also includes a discussion about how to set up the directory structure to make development go faster:

    https://www.scirra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=153&t=186227&p=1142313&hilit=airconsole+controller#p1142313

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  • The only other cross-platform browser engine is Firefox, and I don't think it's architected to support a framework like NW.js, so it's not been done yet AFAIK.

    Edge is Windows 10 only, so you may as well publish a Windows Store app (which you already can do). Safari is Mac-only, and I don't think it would be very interesting if you couldn't use it on any other platform.

    For the sake of inclusion, you could do the same thing in the Mac app store by loading everything into a web view and publishing it as a native app. I believe this is the mac equivalent to a Windows Store app. If you have a game that runs well on MacBooks, you might stand a much better chance of getting noticed in the mac App Store than in the Windows Store because there is less competition.

    Then again, NW.js works just fine for this purpose, and it is much simpler than creating your own project in Xcode.

  • I haven’t been able to use UserMedia in iOS 11 in Construct 3 either. I suspect it is a problem with the Safari implementation.

  • repkino

    Alternative

    Genius! Thank you for this. I ended up building my own solution, but this is so much cleaner!