Drasa's Forum Posts

  • You could easily link the amount of bullets proportinally to the timescale value as well... for example anything over 100 bullets and you start slowing time by 0.01 for each extra bullet... you just have to make sure that you don't have too many bullets otherwise it will stop time completely lol. Perhaps a limit of minimum timescale would be the way to go if you choose to do something like this.

    ~Sol

    Set timescale to TimeScale * 0.99^NumberOfObjects[/code:2e3p509v]

(0.99 can be any number below 1, depending on how quickly you want the frame rate to drop) This expression gets closer and closer to zero but never reaches it, so it's kind of natural limit. ("asymptote")

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  • just realized the inability to display japanese characters also rules out my idea to create a flash card application in construct to help my studies (i'd release it to the public, too) :(

    it'd be too much work to use images for all that

    Fortunately, there is alternatives :D http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/ http://ichi2.net/anki/

    Utf-8 support would be much appreciated, though! (I study Japanese too, btw. Actually... Japanese is my main subject. I'm going to be a translator.)

  • I think i'm having a similar problem, i have multiple instances of the same object, each one has a different height value

    if the player is overlapping more than one of them, even though i put an event in that picks the object by it's highest height value, it STILL picks the one that was created first, NOT the one with the highest value.

    I dunno if it's related or not to your problem, to be honest i'm watching heroes and didn't read all the walls lol

    That sounds like a bug (or a coding mistake)... My "problem" is just a feature request. Maybe you could show a cap?

  • how can i use qarp for cubic curves?

    is this for that?

    "Quadratic interpolation. Returns lerp(lerp(a, b, x), lerp(b, c, x), x)"

    im unsure what lerp is tho plz explain ill check the wiki 2

    and is x the time value

    a number from 0 to 1

    Cubic curves would be... lerp(lerp(lerp(a, b, x), lerp(b, c, x), x), lerp(lerp(b, c, x), lerp(c, d, x), x))

    In other words... lerp(qarp(a, b, c, x), qarp(b, c, d, x))

    You should use this instead of self-made expression since it performs faster and is looks cleaner :).

  • Oh my god. The Google respects us with a post. Epic ;D.

  • At first, you must set the distort map. It's rows number must be same than cols number, otherwise it doesn't work. The displacement points are indexed from 0 to the number of rows/columns. So when you distort a sprite, you usually want to loop it with nested for:

    System: 3 For "x" from 0 to 10
System: 3 For "y" from 0 to 10[/code:3dlyxans]

Use the LoopIndex in loop to set the displace point you want to distort. The x and y displaces mean the amount of pixels you want to move the point.

Try to do something simple at first, for example, applying a constant value to x and y displaces and see the object changing it's position.

The collision mask doesn't update with it, though :I

  • I think that the first is faster and easier.

  • Hello. I played first time with distortions and noticed two problems:

    1) Distortions don't work unless distortion map has same amount of rows and columns. I just messes up and looks glitchy if there ar for example 4 rows and 10 columns. Edit: Filed a buf of this.

    2) The collision mask doesn't update with distortions.

    I tried to find workarounds for 2, but with little success. I tried to paste the sprite into a canvas, but I have no clue how to handle collisions with canvas. Is there a way?

  • Theoretically when conditions needed to make two objects are met, then you would have to make two parallel sub-events - both "always"-ed. First one will handle making first object and initializing it, second one: handle second object.

    Yep :). That's because Selected Object Lists descend to subevents, but not back from subevent to parent event or sibiling event.

  • Recently, there has been a lot of discussion of things like that. If you have to do something to a independent instance, you must pick it. The actions in an event apply only to picked objects, so you must ensure that only the instance you want to manipulate gets picked. You can pick with Unique Identifer, for example. For each -condition is also a lifesaver, it loops through every instance of an object so that the event is performed once for each instance.

    I'm in uni now and I should be studying (deadlines :S), so can't blabber more. Sorry :D

  • Jayjay: LABEL! Yes, that's the word that fits the purpose. Thanks for the term.

    About multiple picking conditions: Lets have two Sprite1s, UID 2 with 'Size' 4 and UID 4 with 'Size' 7. that "Sprite1 (labelled A) Collides with Sprite1 (labelled B)" must work so that both A and B pick both UID 2 and UID 4... That's because if it picks directly one instance there is no way to test further differences between A and B in following events. So, after the collision condition A = (UID2, UID4) and B = (UID2, UID4), and after the "A.Value('Size') > B.Value('Size')" condition A = (UID4) and B = (UID2).

    There's some problems if user wants to do so that whichever sprite destroys is chosen randomly... or something like that. If there's a "Pick randomly" condition to rule out other instance in A, how are we going to make so that the outruled instance is conserved in B and the other is ruled out?

    My answer would be that there was an condition like "Exclude A from B". This would be useful tool in many other situations also, when it's easy to define what the other label consist of, and after that just make B to be "not A"...

  • Secondly, an idea about a faster, new type of loop, "For Each Pair". I got this idea when reading a thread about gravity simulation () In gravitation calculations, you must loop trough every object pair, because every object casts a force to every object. Traditionally you would do this with nested for each loop, which is unfortunately really slow. The gravitation simulation uses a loop where every object is tested with every object. This is a very common special case of nested loop, and I think that it could be TWICE faster!

    A nested loop. Numbers are object instances and I means that the looping event is tested with instances of it's column and row.

      1 2 3 4 5
1 I I I I I
2 I I I I I
3 I I I I I
4 I I I I I
5 I I I I I
[/code:39e3huh9]

"For Each Pair" -loop. A new kind of loop which would perform about twice faster. O means that the looping event is not tested with the instances of it's column and row.
[code:39e3huh9]
  1 2 3 4 5
1 O I I I I
2 O O I I I
3 O O O I I
4 O O O O I
5 O O O O O
[/code:39e3huh9]

So, it runs through every PAIR of instances only one. I.e. if it has already tested and performed the event with instances 1 and 3, it won't do so again with instances 3 and 1. On top of that, it doesn't perform the loop with the instances 1 and 1, in other words, the same instance (well, this could be an optional choise). "For each pair" -loop could use "instance naming" described above.

[code:39e3huh9]For each pair of Asteroid (A and B)

    Set global('TempForce') *force calc here*

    Asteroid.A.[Physics].AddForce global('TempForce') towards Asteroid.B

    Asteroid.B.[Physics].AddForce global('TempForce') towards Asteroid.A

    [/code:39e3huh9]

    In theory, an loop like this, when optimised propely, would be a little over twice (minus overhead) faster than a nested loop, because the operations are done for every object pair, instead of every object... It's impossible for me to say would it really be significantly faster in Construct if implemented, but it might be worth of testing.

    Finally, some other picking thoughts... Does "Pick random" pick randomly from the current Selected Object List or from all objects? I experienced some difficulties with it when trying to get it pick from SOL. It SHOULD pick from SOL, shouldn't it? Also, "Pick n objects randomly" would be nice.

    Then about forgetting SOLs... currently the function object is the only way to forget a SOL inside an event. I think that this is such a basic functionality that using Function object feels like a workaround... How about option of forgetting SOL in subevent? Or something like that.

    Oh, one more: Did construct suppor arrays internally? (Haven't used them and I am on comp that doesn't have Construct now) If so, whould it be possible to save and load object selections to and from arrays? Would speed up and simplify certain things, and allow even easier debugging with selections issues.

  • Hello.

    I posted already this: in uploads forum, but I got the feeling that people kind of ignored and missed it. So, I'll post now my instance picking ideas and some new thoughts here.

    First of all, Consturct needs improved picking of object instances. The problem is currently that when there is two instances of the same object interracting in same event, user is unable point out which instance does he mean.

    For simple example, let's have a game where there is creatures, and bigger creatures eat smaller, as they collide. The smaller thus destroys and the bigger gets even more bigger. A game this simple is relatively easy to make using different ways, but the most simple, intuive way would be addressing the two creatures with different names. We say that creature A is the bigger and B the smaller, and then describe that creature A does this and creature B does that. This is a feature that Construct doesn't currently support with different instances of same object.

    A code example of would-be syntax:

    Sprite1.A Collides with Sprite1.B
+Sprite1.A.Value('Size') > Sprite1.B.Value('Size')

    Add Sprite1.B.Value('Size') to Sprite1.A.Value('Size')

    Sprite1.B Destroy

    [/code:3vawz0gi]

    Notice that the names aren't predefined for specific instances, they are assigned as the event performs, and discarded after, when SOL is discarded also.

    There is a workaround, which I use in my thread on Uploads forum and which David uses (), and which some other use in those gravity simulation threads etc. This workaround uses families, it represents a specific instance of an object with one family and another instance with another family. It works fairly well... but it is and feels still a workaround.

  • Gah! Please post non-worksafe before images like that, some older ladies just got a heart attack when that... thing flashed onto my screen.

    Nope, just kiddin' :D

  • I dont think you completely understand, the condition loop

    Pair: Loop each

    Would repeat the actions for each parent, and select the spaceships and turrets accordingly. So if you have 600 spaceships and 1200 turrets, it would loop 600 times, selecting the turrets for the one selected spaceship.

    So it's a bit like container, but editable in runtime and capable of having many instances of same object per a parent object. That sounds like what I was originally hoping for containers to be, when Scirra released the first public builds :D. Great!