Lost my Keys's Forum Posts

  • How on earth can I do this? The biggest obstacle for me seems to be that I can't keep the character from jumping. What I initially tried was something like this:

    MouseKeyboard: "Down" is down

    MouseKeyboard: On "Jump" pressed

    System: Trigger once

    > PlayerFall through platforms ? Yes

    But... I can't even see what sort of result, grossly wrong or not, that gives me because of the character jumping. Is there a way to do the classic down + jump way of dropping through a platform?

    Platform behavior - allow down button

  • > For example. A point and click game. (...) But 3D would make it easier thanks to the depth, without turning it into 3D

    >

    Nice example. Monkey Island 4 was 3D but didn't have mouse control, just like Grim Fandango. Why? it was too damn hard to figure out what you were clicking.

    So no, it's does not make it easier.

    Well just cause I suggested 3D in that example, doesn't mean go the whole hog and use different control methods too. (I didn't like Grim, and pretty much swore off Lucasarts later efforts) Once their point and click games started getting all 3Dy n stuff, they seemed to become.. crap and couldn't hold a candle to the older ones that are still immensely playable, as are all the other point and click games that did the rounds back then.

    What I said was use it as a way to build the scenes. Rather than an event or bunch of events saying where a bush is in relation to the character. Just use the z-depth and all that is handled by itself. Think of it as layering. Then as you point and click your character through the scene, it knows if it should be in front of or behind part of the scenery. The scenery of which is simply made up of flat sprites. Like a diorama you might have made early on in school, of flat pieces of cardboard. Only this way it wouldn't get destroyed when Jerry the token fat kid with a gland problem, doesn't see it when he sits down to eat his twelve packed lunches.

    Also there's a use for the 3D Box.. make it invisible and use it as a collision box around and behind the various parts of the scenery. Nice big square blocks should play nicely with something like the RTS behavior (which seems to be the closest in construct to how the path-finding could work in such a game).

  • I'm talking about placing meshes next to each other like a tile map. If you place one right after another, you will get a line where the background shows through. It has something to do with 3d layering, not sure if its a bug tho...

    Well that's just made meshes useless for what I intended to use them for.. Back to the shader idea *sighs*

  • You can add multiple meshes, but,......and its a big but, they wont line up even if the z heights are the same.

    That makes both baby jesus cry, and kills kittens at the same time as clubbing seals. This doesn't apply to the way things are done in your terrastruct does it?

  • Wow, some very cool replies. It's good to see that when it comes down to it, many don't want it to become another 3D engine after all, and are just looking for little extra's.

    But for a lot of purposes, people only want 3d to do something like a 3d lamp post in the background, or a 3d spinning coin...the game itself is still 2d but the background is 3d...I've written an obj loader before so I might make a version of 3dbox one day that can load and render an obj...then its capable of rotating and everything..but it wouldn't be as brilliant as the engine in a program like Unity because that was build from the ground up to support 3d.

    I think something like that would be just fine. To me, it's still WAY more than we had back in those days for making games (we were amazed and considered ourselves lucky when we finally got Deluxe Paint and could use 32 colors) lol. I don't want to see it becoming all about 3D though, like others say, can use a proper app for those things. Construct is and should always be 2D at heart. With 3D benefits as an extension and helper rather than a focus.

    For example. A point and click game. Granted, you don't need 3D to make one of those, using lots of events you could work out where parts of the image are, and if the player is in front or behind them. But 3D would make it easier thanks to the depth, without turning it into 3D (how many loved the first Monkey Island, compared to how many enjoyed the last one that was all 3D, yeah hehe).

    Or there's the way I'm intending to use current meshes, my game would be 2D, and I've no intention of changing from that, the meshes will simply be used to "pop out" the graphics in the locations and give a little depth to them. But it'll just be a visual effect only, it'll still be entirely 2D.

    A simple object loader would be nice to have, but as others have said. Open this pandora's box and people are going to start expecting more and more. I suppose it's a fine line to walk.

    Though even I have to admit, 2.5D like Duke Nukem or Blood, would be great fun to have

  • As far as I know the hotspot for any physics object needs to be centered in order for the collision to work properly. If I remember correctly this has something to do with the way Box2D works.

    If you need the hotspot at the edge of the flipper for whatever reason then make your sprite like so:

    <img src="http://i45.tinypic.com/i6clc9.png">

    Then when you draw your custom collision mask in the layout, just place your points around the colored area like normal.

    Ahhhh! Ok that makes complete sense now, I see where I was going wrong (didn't think the hotspot location would matter, but yep, that's the problem right there). Neat way to fix it too, didn't think of doing it that way either. Awesome!

    > 1 ) How do you increase the accuracy of the physics.

    >

    It's hard to say without a .cap to look at to see what's wrong.

    No need, you practically answered, fixed and showed a better way for that question below (it's cause I often test stuff using the mouse behavior for speeds sake, and that's where I was screwing up when it came to physics). A classic case of the error being between the computer and the chair.

    > 2 ) Are there issues with physics objects and mouse control? Again, seems flakey for me when I use it

    >

    Yes. If you manually move a physics object with the mouse or a behavior or by updating it's coordinates in any way except with physics itself, then you will get weird collisions. Also, when you manually move the flipper against the ball with the mouse, the flipper has no force, so it's not actually "hitting" the ball. You're just intersecting the flipper and the ball. The ball and the flipper are trying to push out of each other, but the mouse behavior is overriding it's position.

    Here's a method for moving physics object around with the mouse that may suit your needs:

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/dragandtoss.cap

    It's got a little bit of lag behind the mouse but it works pretty well.

    *sigh* So simple and yet so perfect.

    Thank you so much!!!

  • Noticed something weird going on with custom collisions and physics

    Download:Example Really simple example cap to show the problem.

    The custom collision is setup correctly around the object following the mouse, but when it's run, the collision shape is somewhere above the object. The hotspot has to be where it is (think of it like a paddle in a pinball game, rotating at that point, even though it doesn't in this example).

    Is this a known issue or did I just set something up wrong?

    Also three questions

    1 ) How do you increase the accuracy of the physics. I've seen other people's examples and objects bounce and collide perfectly, even with tons of physics objects all interacting at once, without any of them passing through each other or acting weirdly, yet whenever I've tried to do the same, objects just snap and bug out much of the time and the physics come across as incredibly flakey for me. I've set the World Solver and World Friction to their highest setting and seen no improvement. I've used objects that aren't any different in mass or size (I read about that issue on the wiki and made sure to check it wasn't that). I just can't seem to make them behave like other people can, even when I attempt to mimic what they did in their exe's. Does it need something to do with timedelta? I know it's not my machine, as like I say, others have worked fine for me.

    2 ) Are there issues with physics objects and mouse control? Again, seems flakey for me when I use it, yet I've seen it in others creations that appear to work and behave just fine (one had leaves being pulled about with a mouse (which is moved about quickly) and lots of physics going on and looked flawless). So I'm clearly doing something wrong.

    3 ) Tiny request, not a big deal, more curiosity really. Will there eventually be an option with creating custom collisions to drag the points around after creating them, as opposed to the current method of having to delete them all to go back to one you want to change.

  • That is so cool!

  • [quote:161ga2x4]I do agree that meshes WOULD work better, and ultimately look better. But unless someone can come up with a way to convert height maps to mesh files (which would IMO be the best method of "modeling" mesh files in construct), then for what I need, a shader like requested is still probably the only way to go.

    Here ya go....

    http://guicon.110mb.com/structure/index.php?act=page&id=2

    Shitty host... is shitty, so here's the direct link

    http://files.getdropbox.com/u/666516/terrastruct.exe

    Buh.. Wah.. How.. WOW!

    lol!

    Dude, seriously, how the hell did you make that?? It's amazing! I take it it's going to be included with v1 of construct? Cause it should be, wow. It's perfect! I'd have replied sooner but jumped right in and got carried away trying it out. I've only looked at the mesh generation part so far, it does exactly what I hoped, and will let me load a height map in and save it out directly, without having to worry about edges matching up thanks to the 0,255 being set heights across the board (neat that you did that, so does the method I'd use to create the height maps, it just saved me fiddling with values and Photoshop batches hehe). I love that there's options for how detailed the mesh should be too.

    I owe you big time for this, wow, just wow!

  • thanks for the examples, the first one did it.

    Seems I wasn't getting any results because the erase object needs to be on top of the other objects (duh!) and works within a single layer.

    this will be useful, I'm sure... I plan to use it to mask shadows out of an occluded object!

    Yeah it can certainly do that, I was considering it in the other thread, but the way things are heading for me, i don't think I'll have the resources for even more objects lol.

  • mmf2 has this in an extension I think, parallaxer object I think.

    How well does it work in that? Hmm just checked it out on youtube, works fast, and shows it can be done, well something similar to meshes anyways.

    The shader request just distorts the image depending on brightness (height map) and distance from a point.

    Also, a shader makes it VERY slow.

    Really. It's slow, even in modern hardware. For that performance, I'd rather go full 3D.

    I think that's just the case for the parallax occlusion shaders. This one would basically do what the distort shader does, only differently. Meshes would work great if the tools were there, but currently for what I need, they're not practical (they'd work fine in a shoot-em-up or top down game tho). I can't create something that converts height maps to .mesh files. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Each one would be different shapes.

    Though saying that, even meshes would have issues, as it would be effectively making displacement mapping for everything, and anyone in 3D could tell you that's a killer for real time, hence the creation of shaders to approximate the effect of there being more polygons than there is. A mesh wouldn't have the polygon resolution to capture the difference in height between stones in a wall or the knarly shapes found in the bark of a tree like the shader could. Even though using meshes would allow for better looking depth, and even interesting effects such as overhanging objects, arches and so on (from the side) that change position convincingly.

    Bleah, it's not fair, lol!

    Doing them by hand would be out of the question for a few reasons

    1 ) too many of them (talking well over a thousand or more - no not on screen all at once, hehe)

    2 ) matching the edges of each sprite up using the mesh tool, can't be done by hand, would result in lots of gaps and constant refining to the point it would never be done. While #1 isn't too bad, #2 would ruin all the hard work and effort.

    I do agree that meshes WOULD work better, and ultimately look better. But unless someone can come up with a way to convert height maps to mesh files (which would IMO be the best method of "modeling" mesh files in construct), then for what I need, a shader like requested is still probably the only way to go.

    There is one other option, that would be to create each level of object movement as a separate layer, but yeah, ouch ouch ouch, lol! There's going to be enough real parallax layers going on without adding 20+ per sprite, so that's like a worst case scenario hehe.

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  • It should be layer based unless you enable Z layering in layer properties, I think.

    Woohoo! Excellent, thank you!

  • Quick question really. Is the depth used by meshes universal, or layer based?

    For example, two objects at a depth of 10, one object is on a layer behind the other object also in its own layer. Are those objects sharing the same space as each other, or is the object on the layer above seen as higher up and therefore not clipping the object in the layer below, regardless of the depth of that one.

    Please say layer based, please say layer based.

  • So many old games could have been soooo much more fun with something like this (no having to stand around waiting for your mate to get back from the bathroom and his motionless character holding you back), or those old sports games, or football games. I'm trying to find an excuse to use this in mine now, grr, lol.

    Awesome, very very cool. Now do it with four players!

  • Meshes can be kinda hard to grasp for people new to making games or unfamiliar with 3D... and the ways of rotation you can do with them is kinda limited by default means. They're most easy to use with topdown 3D stuff (or completely sidescrolling stuff) - anything beyond that requires a lot more thought and math to pull off. I was thinking about using meshes for my danmaku thing but ditched the idea for now since I couldn't be arsed to think about the math involved with moving stuff through the screen properly.

    EDIT: The mesh editor itself is simple to use and easy to grasp, and so is loading meshes at runtime. Doing UV distortion stuff via the events is where things get a bit more complex, and that's what is required to pull off basically all the 3D stuff people have been asking about.

    Yeah, that's true, I wouldn't want to try model anything too complicated with them either (would be like modeling in Sculpt3D all them years ago *shudders uncontrollably*), but various shaped surfaces and using the normal map shaders for the smaller details, they look to be quite capable.

    They look to be perfect for the shoot-em-up environments though. I was looking at R-Type Dimensions earlier for the XBox, and the sideways scrolling view of it's 3D mode could easily be duplicated with them, including a small number of actual enemies, while the rest could be pre-rendered to appear three dimensional. Though don't know how one would go about getting the realtime lighting effect.

    BTW turns out the mesh was loading correctly, just the amount of displacement wasn't matching once inside construct and became unnoticeable (but I'm not giving up yet! lol).

    I think most people who are using 3D in Construct are using some combination of 3D boxes and 3D mesh distortion. There are a few open bugs on the tracker about both though, which might be preventing more people using them. Daiz raised a good point that generally 3D stuff is harder, more mathematical, and more difficult to reason with in your head, which is why 2D is quicker and easier to use.

    Yeah, the more advanced 3D stuff is going a bit overboard for a 2D app IMO. Though I love seeing what people manage to create with them. I could certainly see them being of great use in top down games like Diaz mentioned just then too. I suppose it's possible to layer them (since they are still 2D sprites), so suddenly "flat" tree canopies would have all kinds of depth to them, banks of rivers would appear to dip into the water, even some kind of isometric feel to larger buildings. Hell I didn't think of that earlier, wow, awesome! lol.

    Seems like they're useful and capable of quite a lot of subtle little tricks and effects before even having to worry about how to rotate them in 3D space (which even having worked in 3D most of my adult life, I wouldn't be able to do via mathematics lol) or other advanced effects. Course I'm still thinking of more basic usage for them, more along the lines of enhancing 2D a little, rather than replacing it like I understand many are hoping for. Since I'm still in the "construct should remain a 2D app" camp and it's unlikely I'll change my mind on that.