Jase00's Forum Posts

    I understand, and I shared the same frustration when CA was first announced, but after thinking about it, I don't really feel that way anymore. I mean, whether they're working on CA, or more 3D features, or whatever new C3 feature, then this could always be perceived as "why spend time on these features, when there's major bugs to fix, such as the jank issue?". I personally wish they would focus on the event sheet editor as top priority, but many would disagree (and for good reason, since jank is an unacceptable issue when releasing a game). When there are major bugs with C3, you tend to see hotfixes get released ASAP, which is good to see, especially if it is a bug that affects saving project files or something, but some bugs are either not clear to Scirra (hence them asking for bug reports, I know this jank topic comes up a lot, but I don't know if anyone has posted a bug report), or Scirra are at the mercy of those chrome bugs being answered.

    I agree with the "employing new staff" point, hopefully that's incoming, as this seems like a win win, allowing staff to focus strongly on specific areas of programming or research and such.

    Hypothetically, let's assume they stopped focusing on CA and even new C3 features, and let's assume they got some new staff, and then they focused 100% of their attention on this jank issue - Judging by what has been said, I think we would still be stuck, as it relies on these chrome bugs to be answered(?) If there was a solution or workaround, I like to believe that Scirra would be trying that solution now, or at least working towards it, and Ashley mentioned they have indeed done work towards this (although the issue continues, so yeah, get dem bug reports out there). If it is the case that we truly are at the mercy of those chrome bugs being answered, should Scirra find a completely different approach? Maybe, maybe not. Do other HTML5 engines like Phaser or GDevelop suffer the same issues? I have no idea, but this could be good to demonstrate to Scirra.

    I 100% agree with having choice for vsync and frame limits, and I definitely can see the benefits for both PC and mobile if this was implemented.

    I do agree that a frame limiter would be great, and I do see other engines that have this (you mentioned Phaser, also GDevelop allows you to choose a maximum FPS). I trust that Scirra haven't implemented something like this for a fair enough reason, whether it's chrome interfering with how C3 is designed, or whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, I would love to give people the ability to choose to have vsync/frame limiters on or off, much like all games allow you to (I always have vsync off whenever I play games, especially rhythm games or quick-reaction games such as platformer or FPS games).

    On my own project, a desktop rhythm game, I have different settings for visuals, and when on "Ultra", I do see jank when cpu and gpu usage are both about 60% and the FPS is always stable, maybe dips lower by 1 FPS now and then. Whilst I could optimise my game and visuals, the thing that teases me is that, the jank is significantly lowers when vsync is set to "ticks only". I have not been able to reproduce this in a minimal project though. But when I can just flick a switch to turn vsync off and get the smoothest experience, it makes me wish we could just set a max FPS cap and be done with this, allowing the player to decide whether they want to use vsync or not, limit FPS or not. I have a 240hz monitor, and playing on ultra, some players may wish to lower the max FPS, just to keep the FPS stable, but I can't expect players to have to go into their computer settings to lower their monitor hz just to play. I really do wish there was a max FPS cap option.

    I do not agree about Scirra being unaware or choosing to ignore the issues, and I don't agree with Construct Animate consuming Scirra's time, and I am someone that is currently not the target audience for CA - you have to imagine that since CA is literally C3 but with different things enabled/disabled, the development process must be very trivial rather than Scirra starting with an entirely new base for CA - not to mention that most updates get applied to C3 too, and only video exports have been the unique feature for CA so far. Also, if Scirra do work on a CA-only feature, they always seem to multitask and add a bunch of other fixes and changes within an update, so it's not like C3 gets abandoned whilst they work on CA. If Scirra turned a blind eye to issues so that they can work on CA, then yeah that would be a problem, but so far I have not observed this. Assuming those starred chrome bugs end up with a solution from Google, I'd bet that Scirra would be straight on this.

    But! The thing is, yeah, some of those chrome bug reports haven't been updated for months now, so it does give a sense of "what now?", like are we relying on chrome devs to resolve this, which have no timeframe or deadline or anything, whilst C3 devs (particularly mobile devs) are patiently waiting and we are all at the mercy of Google? If they cannot resolve anything, is it up to Scirra to find a workaround or solution? I do not know.

  • I am unsure if this applies in Construct 3, but:

    I find that, when testing gamepads, if I connect and disconnect controllers a lot, sometimes the controllers get assigned to random players at times (I.e the x box controller light is set to player 3, even when there are no other controllers connected).

    If you test, try rebooting with only 1 DDR pad connected, and see if it works? Perhaps it is getting assigned to player 2 or 3 or something.

  • Thanks for the info R0j0 and WackyToaster!

    I have now created a suggestion for collision filtering. Feel free to vote for it and write other examples you can think of:

    https://construct23.ideas.aha.io/ideas/C23-I-128

    I do think the LiquidFun library looks really cool - I have to wonder if it would be a tricky decision for Scirra to implement, I wonder if be compatible with the "Physics" behaviour, in the sense that, if someone threw in the "LiquidFun" behaviour/plugin into their project and expected their existing Physics objects to interact with LiquidFun, would that work, or does Box2D and LiquidFun exist as completely different methods of physics? No clue, but just a thought on the potential complexity of this. Regardless, I have voted because it is definitely something I'd use and assuming it's designed to be extremely performant compared to a bunch of Box2D objects simulating water, then heck yes!

  • Funnily enough, I've recently been searching for an alternative to the current Box2D physics, as I have hit a few roadblocks due to 1 major limitation in the current physics behaviour - collision filtering.

    I keep wondering if collision filtering is simply not possible with Box2D, and perhaps something else such as chipmunk, or Matter.JS, could give us collision filtering. On C2, I literally couldn't have made a specific project I was doing if it weren't for R0j0's amazing chipmunk physics plugin (so much appreciation for that, R0j0!)

    A very basic example of why collision filtering is important - say you make a multiplayer platformer game using physics only, and you want to have "jump thru" platforms - If Player 1 is travelling down and needs to land on the jump-thru, whilst Player 2 is jumping from below the jump-thru, you would want to enable collisions between Player 1 and the jump-thru, and disable collisions between Player 2 and the jump-thru.

    You cannot achieve this, as once you disable collisions for Player 2, then ALL players will have their collisions disabled, meaning Player 1 falls right through the jump-thru.

    There are likely workarounds, one I saw was to have a 2nd type of player object attached to the main player object, and then enable/disable the physics behaviour depending on whether they need to travel up or down, but that is quite tricky and fiddly to deal with. I did test a hopeful workaround which was adding 2 physics behaviours to 1 object, but from my tests, I think Box2D goes by UID, so if you disabled collisions with the jump-thru on the 2nd physics behaviour, it disables collisions for the 1st physics behaviour too. Arrgh!

    On a project I'm working on, I wanted to have physics cars to drive through sonic-style loop-de-loops, which involves enabling and disabling collisions as you reach different segments of the loop. Very doable with solids or pure events, but I cannot find a way to do this with physics, and I really don't want to have to clone every vehicle part and make sure to match their physics properties and collision polygon every time I want to make a change - I can imagine it being even more complicated when dealing with switching to the cloned vehicle parts when a vehicle is made up of physics wheel joints and such.

    Definitely something for the suggestions platform, but need to write it all up neatly!

  • Not to be repetitive if it has already been discussed (I feel like I've posted this before), but, I use Chrome on a Win10 Intel CPU laptop, I have a project with over a thousand events, and I only experience lag when I am in the event sheet view and have hundreds of events visible. I have all events in groups, so I can right-click>event sheet view>collapse all groups, and performance jumps up significantly.

    Also, many yonks ago when I bought my gaming laptop, I noticed C3 performed awfully in Chrome and better in Firefox. Turns out it was Nvidia settings affecting this, as nvidia forces Chrome to use the integrated graphics, rather than the dedicated GPU. It actually prevents you from forcing Chrome to use the GPU, so I ended up disabling my integrated graphics in my laptops BIOS, and all has been smooth ever since.

    Hope this is useful to someone!

    To be honest, I feel that Playtronic has given almost all the info they can - They've done tests suggested to them such as packet test, build on different devices and different internet connection, etc. But, it is also true that, well, what can Scirra even suggest at this point? Unless the build server stores logs for each job, then maybe there could be a clue there, but if the logs say "disconnected, reconnected, disconnected, reconnected", then we will not be any further along. Unless the logs were clear that the build server ended the connection, or the user's device ended the connection?

    At least there is the alternative method of using local cordova build, e.g. If someone had a deadline and then this issue began happening, it's great that there is an alternative, even if not preferred.

    I have only a few more ideas or tests to try, but may need to DM you - I googled your username but couldn't see any relevant website or socials. Are you happy to post your discord, email, or any social links, or point me to somewhere so that I can message you?

    Hmm, well the fact it happens for you, even with a new project, does make me wonder if it is something on your end. I don't know for sure, it's hard to tell. It is strange it happened when build server went down, but the build server has crashed randomly over the years (this thread was originally about the build server crashing a year ago, but it sounds like it continued to work for you during 2022, despite crashing at random times).

    Do you have another computer or laptop to test building with C3, just to rule out if it is your computer? Maybe you could use your phone on WiFi and do a build, then your phone on 4G and do a build if you have mobile data?

    I know you said you have excellent internet, but could it be possible that you're experiencing packet loss? From your video, it looks like it keeps successfully reconnecting to the build server, then losing connection again. I found this website and I get 0% for "Total packet loss", could you try this website and click "start test" and see what results you get? packetlosstest.com

    Do you use any antivirus software that might be reacting to receiving the download? If you use one, what do you use? Dumb thing to suggest, but it could be a rare coincidence that your antivirus updated and suddenly rejects incoming downloads in some cases.

    It could very well be something related to the build server, but it is very surprising that you can't build a blank project. I'm guessing everyone else can build, since they're not posting here and this thread is at the top of the forums for the past days.

    Just to be clear, I'm not certain it is a "you" issue, but I'm trying to think of possible issues that could be happening, since noone else so far is having the same issue.

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    Hey there,

    Is your project large? Many events, or many images/audio/etc.? Do you use third party plugins, and if so, which ones?

    Perhaps you could send your project file to Scirra's support email, and ask if they could try and build it?

    If not, I could always try and build it.

  • Ayy,

    I know little about implementing different javascript apis, and it may be something niche that isn't worth anyone's time, but I was curious on people's thoughts on WebUSB / WebHID.

    developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebUSB_API

    I was particularly curious if you could utilise this to detect individual keyboards and mice that are plugged in, to allow multiple players with multiple keyboards to play a local multiplayer game. I think it's incredibly rare to see this type of functionality in games, I can only recall 1 example (I think Serious Sam 3 allowed multiple mice), but I could see myself utilising this if it existed. I couldn't exactly find a clear answer if WebUSB would allow multiple keyboards/mice, but I wonder if anyone else had any info on this?

    Is there other things this could enable us to do? (E.G. Maybe with RGB keyboards, allowing us to alter the colour of keys, which I believe Terraria has support for).

  • Bit of random positive feedback, but my home internet randomly died today, and I remember often reading about people being unable to use C3 offline. However, my experience was successful!

    I use Chrome with no extensions (My general browser is Firefox, but I use Chrome strictly for C3).

    I hadn't opened C3 today, but when internet died, I immediately opened Chrome, and I have a home tab that opens editor.construct.net/beta . I noticed it was loading for longer, so I anxiously waited, and after about 10 seconds, I suddenly see C3's start page. Very good!

    I opened a project and saw a popup stating that I'm using free version, which was a worry, but then after a further 10 seconds, it suddenly logged me in with a little "crossed-out cloud" icon, and I was all set. Previews work fine.

    This was a pleasant surprise! I know positive feedback is less common to see, as it makes sense to post to highlight issues or get support, but I thought I'd share my experience.

  • Welcome!! How did you discover Construct 3? What sort of games do you think you will make?

  • Few but large for me. Maybe 7 or 8 sheets at most.

    I have a event sheet called "Main" and I include all other event sheets here.

    I use many groups within each sheet, which seems to work well, as it is easy to quickly scroll and peek in a group without having to deal with tabs (although tabs are extremely useful too, as it remembers your last scroll position in each sheet, making it easy to flick between multiple event sheets) .

    Many groups are not so good when you leave all of them open, as this can slow down C3 when there's hundreds or thousands of events visible. It can take 2 or 3 seconds for C3 to react to UI clicks when this happens, but thankfully you can right-click and collapsing all groups and C3 behaves nice and fast again.

    With functions, I store most functions next to whatever is relevant to it (e.g. If a function was Init_HUD then I'd keep this near the top of the "HUD" event sheet). Whereas functions that are useful in many places (e.g. Functions that return a value for converting numbers or some other math), then I tend to have these on a Functions event sheet.

    I'm interested to know how everyone else structures their events

  • I checked a tiny bit of your post history - is this related to the health popup message that Scirra added? If so, there's really not much to say about it. Really thinking about it, I'd throw the suggestion "can this popup have a button to 'never remind me' so that I don't have to hunt in the settings for this?", or maybe mentioning that 2 hours should actually be 1 hour (many advise each other to take a 5 minute walk after sitting down for 1 hour), but beyond that, Scirra want this message in their product, it can be disabled, and... That's it. It may be true that this kind of message is not in other software (I've only seen it in MMO games), but it can be disabled with a couple of clicks. If it couldn't be disabled, then I'd bet many people would be louder about this on the forum. You made a new topic about this which was extremely sarcastic - sarcasm works as a joke a lot of the time and I love sarcasm, but it came off as abrasive when I read this, like when you mentioned "I wonder why no serious software does this.", which is a valid opinion to have, but just sounds like you think C3 is not serious software due to... a popup message. It comes off as exaggerated negativity. I appreciate a bit of spiciness on the forum, but I read your post thinking "...why not disable it?" .

    For the record, I'm just a ******** lurker on these forums, so I could be wrong about things, but I feel like I have a general idea of what to expect with locks and such.

    I think the admins are generally fair with locking threads. As much as it ***** to have your topics locked, moderation is needed. Sometimes it will not work in our favour and it can be frustrating, but moderation is needed, otherwise this place could become a messy negative hell-hole of chaos, which would push current users away from the forum, and possibly confuse new users that visit.

    The admins could make mistakes on what they lock, but that is like any website - anyone that tries to post on Reddit knows how often posts get locked for the most trivial things (I saw an interesting question on ELI5 the other day, clicked on it, and it was removed due to "use the search tool"... I wouldn't have even thought to search for the question that was posted!)

    If a topic was locked unfairly, then I think other forum users might try and defend you if they saw this. But at the end of the day, it's Scirra's forum, they can suddenly decide to lock any post about "discussing competitor products" if they wanted to, but thankfully they have a nice philosophy of allowing a lot of discussion, even if you talk about a competitors product in a positive light (although if the topic was just insulting C3 whilst complimenting another game dev software, then that may get locked due to, well, nothing being gained from the conversation).

    Some things have been discussed to death, such as "Can you make native export?", which is something many wish for, but it is not Scirra's goal with Construct. These topics may get locked quicker, but they usually post a link to some performance stats and such. But on the flip side, say someone found a tool to convert HTML5 into native somehow, then that would be an amazing thing to post and I'd hope someone shares this on the forum!

    I wouldn't worry too much about topic getting locked. If there is a locked topic but you want to discuss a new point, then I'd suggest making new topic, mentioning that you saw a locked topic but had something to add. If that backfires, but you feel it is really important to ask, then you could always email their support.

    If your OWN topic was closed, then I'd avoid making a new topic, as this could look like you're trying to circumvent the admin's decisions, which is against the rules. Email their support in this case.

    I hope you enjoyed my wall of text.

  • I think it's about how much it adds to the conversation if reviving an old thread. I'd imagine if a 1 year old post was bumped to the top with a typical comment that has already been discussed, then it may get locked, but if a new perspective is offered or news/update on the original topic is posted, then that would be alright.

    Merry Christmas/Happy holidays!