Elliott's Forum Posts

  • > digitalsoapbox I just saw Sombrero's recommended specs on steam.

    >

    > OS: Windows 10

    > Processor: Intel Core i7

    > Memory: 8 GB RAM

    > Graphics: Nvidia GTX 980 or equivalent with 8GB VRAM

    > DirectX: Version 11

    > Network: Broadband Internet connection

    > Storage: 500 MB available space

    > Additional Notes: Best played with a 2 stick controller

    >

    > I think you should definitely use something other than Construct.

    >

    Recommended specs will always be high. The minimum specs should be able to be much lower considering the 2D nature of the game, however because of serious limitations that are endemic to Construct's codebase, which are continuously denied but easy to spot just by looking at the engine code, that hasn't been possible. Even low resolution pixel art games stutter, and that's not just due to garbage collection.

    It's simply not a tool for any sizable - or sustainable - game development, period, in its current state. Or seemingly in C3, based on the expectations of either a browser-based or wrapped-browser IDE, on either desktop or mobile, and certainly not on any console, marketing claims aside.

    I'm not even sure the appropriate words exist in the English language to fully express the frustration I had getting even acceptable, let alone good, performance in Sombrero - and I've been dealing with web-based tech professionally for around 20 years. While I understand some (Ashley) will blame others for performance issues, that's simply not the case here - the engine just can't cut it for anything large, and definitely not anything that is meant to run at resolutions expected out of modern desktop games, 2D or otherwise.

    Don't even get me started on collision (or often, lack thereof) issues, unstable frame rates, buggy native behaviors that Scirra refuses to fix (jumpthrough issues, for example), or missing features that are common enough that I can comfortably say they're available with any other option natively - and by "natively" I mean the actual definition of the word, not the one that Scirra misuses all too often to obfuscate performance issues that can be linked directly to C2.

    Anyways, live and learn. There's other tools out there without these issues. I'd suggest looking into them. The event system is cool, but the albatross it's currently shackled to is held together with duct tape and bubble gum that's icky and gooey and the seams are showing.

    This is the kind of dialogue that should be promoted and out in the open between high level developers and Scirra - have you provided isolated cases of your concerns?

  • Not a Scirra dev; but I do work in front-end web development, which is the skillset used to style C3

    Any styles would free and for the good of mankind!

    ...For now! Mwahaha

  • I'm very much looking forward to styling C3 - there's a few caveats that the above trick wont work on (really anything without defined size properties).

    An accessibility theme is already on my to-do list; I'll add left hand version now!

  • Great question and something we haven't actually considered! Just had a quick look online, and seems like it's not possible in CSS to position scrollbars to the left of the container.

    I think there would be some aspects of the UI you could change to be more left hand friendly when it's released with CSS.

    Not an intended possibility, but changing the reading direction swaps the scrollbar to the appropriate side, so from there you just flip the children back to the original:

    http://codepen.io/ElliottBear/pen/YNjyoV

    Voila - left aligned scrollbars <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

    The direction we're going is that you can exercise your 50% discount whenever you want, this year, or next year etc.

  • > I can see events being done on a phone. Looking through, fixing bugs.

    > But otherwise I think it is just a "bonus" feature really.

    >

    > but now I can't do it anyway because of iOS-ness.

    >

    What about this : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google- ... mpt=uo%3D2

    Unfortunately that's not really Chrome - it's Safari with a Google paint job.

    Any web browser on iOS uses Safari's rendering engine.

  • > [quote:2k7sv5a4]That still doesn't answer the question if Chrome breaks C3 , will we be about to run it desktop. Saying that it would never happen is very unrealistic.

    >

    Chrome release "Canary" versions of the browser which are ahead of public release. Construct 3 can be tested on those branches to ensure there are no breaking changes.

    Chrome updates will not be coming out the blue.

    Ok but that doesn't answer the question if Chrome breaks it can we run it on the computer or wait for your fix? Will you pay us if the fix takes us longer than a week or month?

    Oh come on that's just being silly - whilst C3 relies on the Chrome browser, Scirra are not responsible for it.

    C3 also relies on your monitor to work, would you hold Scirra responsible if a video card driver stopped your monitor from working?

    This is ignoring the fact that you can actually rollback Chrome versions.. And that the offline version would be unaffected.

  • Yes - you'd use the browser plugin:

    https://www.scirra.com/manual/110/browser

    Simply set up your touch event and use the Go to URL action

  • It's the weekend right now so I think you're putting an unrealistic expectation on Scirra when you demand a reply, but luckily your questions do have answers:

    1) How will plugins be installed since Google took away plugin control?

    C3 plugins are not Google Chrome plugins.

    2) Will C3 have exporters ?

    Yes.

    3) If C3 does not have exporters will the old exporters work?

    Yes.

    4) If Chrome breaks C3 will we be able to run it without Chrome?

    It's highly unlikely Chrome will implement a breaking change into the browser, whilst C3 is unique the technologies it uses are fundamental and would be respected during browser updates. Regardless, the stable version of Chrome runs several versions behind Canary for this very reason, and Scirra would have a heads up thanks to this.

    5) Will game performance be faster on all devices or the same ?

    It's been known for a while that the runtime is the same as C2s, so game performance will at least be the same. Due to the constantly improving capabilities of device hardware, you could easily argue that the average performance will improve.

    6) Are there any new features besides running on all devices or is that it?

    Scirra have stated several times that there will be regular announcements from here till beta - there's more to come.

    7) Is this just an editor update or will you have ways to make games even easier?

    C3 was originally posited as an editor update, however the most recent blog post hinted at new export options. When you consider the increased multi-platform support (Mac and Linux) and game-dev-on-the-move thanks to mobile support, making games has clearly got easier.

    8) Will you finally make a publishing channel to help with marketing games or no?

    Scirra readily promote games made in C2/3, just use any of their social media hashtags or reach out to their social media manager Laura.

  • Actually it's not too hard to work out - web based IDEs are not new, if it helps you could think of C3 as functionally a CMS for game development.

    As C3 is linked to our accounts, I imagine every account will have a cloud based file tree storing every from c3 files to image assets - most importantly, there'd also be a folder for plugins.

    Where it gets really interesting is that because everything is the browser and behind an account login now, adding extensions should be completely seamless - you'll be able to pop into the Scirra store mid development, install the plugin you need and get right back to development.

    Christ where it gets really exciting is when you consider all the new ways going in browser opens up C3 for the community, you could possibly:

    1) Have a baked-in "Post to forum" option within the program. Having a problem with a tricky event? Forum support is a click away.

    2) Share file access across accounts for collaborative or educational gain.

    3) Tie in seamlessly with version control platforms like GitHub for professional level collaboration options.

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  • This news doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means. The Chrome browser has deprecated the access permissions of a handful of plugins.

    Plugins are not extensions. Chrome uses a small number of plugins like a built-in PDF viewer as standard, these are much closer to base than extensions.

    Browser plugins do not refer to C3 plugins, despite the name being the same. I have no idea how C3 works, but plugins will likely work in a similar way to plugins on web-services like WordPress, wherein they're actually a series of web files (PHP, JS etc) stored in a folder within the WordPress installation.

  • I would adore a built in export function with C3 - Mac support should make this process one step closer for iOS; as previously you had to develop on PC, compile to Mac, sign the export... now it's all on Mac!

    But a word to the HTML5 bashing; I know we all get frustrated with browser support and Chrome issues, but I cannot stress how mammoth the growth of HTML5 has been since C2s inception; the difference in quality and scope of support is staggering.

    And it's picked up critical mass, everything is shifting towards web, cloud and cross platform; before the decade is out the Internet of Things will be well in effect, and web technologies like AJAX, JSON, HTML5, CSS3 and Node.js are leading the way.

  • > Doesn't this solve most of that?

    >

    > "Being browser-based, the UI style can be modified using CSS. We're keen to add a custom theming system to allow anyone to edit the appearance!"

    >

    no, if there are no lines, there is no CSS to replace, the "custom" interface we can do its just replace already created assets of the interface and colors.

    You'd be surprised how flexible CSS can be - you can get very creative with selectors and pseudo elements. If the editor truly is created entirely in HTML5, this will definitely be possible.

    The best C3 feature I've seen yet is in that same screenshot though. Now we'll be able to copy actions as text! (Something that I really will use, though obviously not nearly enough of a feature to upgrade for.)

    This got me excited as well, I wonder how far the "copy as text" extends? Is it just the action, could it be the whole event block? Very obvious learning and teaching applications for here on the forum.

    But what really excites me is that it would imply a relationship between the event editor and typed text; an actual typed syntax... Which could mean that C3 might have a text based event sheet for those that prefer to type code!

    EDIT//

    Looking at it more closely, I really like the subtle border radius on the edges of comments and events.

  • This is the biggest problem - as someone whose entire work software suite is effectively cloud based, Chrome can pack up and run out of memory pretty easily; and that's just using stuff like Google Sheets, YouTube, a CMS or two and some background apps like Harvest, Trello and Slack.

    I can only imagine it works, otherwise Scirra would not have pursued it, but given my experience of Chrome buckling under would I would classify as lightweight dev, I have no idea how it could handle a development IDE that's pulling in graphic files, rendering animations and outputting canvas games.

  • That you can do a shorthand if's (condition ? result_if_true : result_if_false) in expressions. Somehow missed that in the manual

    Used C2 for 4 years, never knew that!