MrMiller's Forum Posts

  • i know how to break animation/movie into frames, but thank you anyway.

    Yes, I'm certain you did, but perhaps not in the context of Construct as I explained since you are new to it, hence my suggestion.

    my question is - are you aware how much space it takes? even with a "slideshowish" 1frame/second a 1 minutes long "movie" will need 60 frames. now get this: my intro is almost 5 minutes long and has been recorded and directed for 60FPS. now thats 300 seconds x 60 frames per one. thats 18 000 frames dude. 18k images. now add 48000freq 32 bit float audio and youll end up with blue ray-size video.

    even if i would make then jpg and kick all the needless parts thats still a massive weight. the lone intro would propable weigh more then the actual game.

    seriously, cut this for me http://www.viddler.com/explore/irbis/videos/1/

    and tell me how it came out. thats my intro

    As I stated before, space is project specific and so are the ways of cutting it and reducing space, so the only people who would be aware of how large something is going to be, are the people working on that specific project. There is no way I would've known how long your video is, so there was no way for me to make an estimate on space, only you would've known that.

    It obviously goes without saying that something as long as 5 minutes is a different situation.

    That said, looking at your video, it's long but it's not complicated at all. I was under the impression that it was a video with a ton of characters and action going on. But it's instead a lot of static shots that Construct can handle just fine, text over the top, some simple scrolling in some shots, and some light flashes with some music in the background. This can all be reproduced in Construct without the need for video, by using scrolling within each layout where scrolling applies, events to control text and movements, and the audio object.

  • [quote:3qyxmt9k]So what you do is make the extraction, resize the files to whatever size you want it to be in your game window, and then run the frames as an animation. It works flawlessly. Here is the software suite:

    Yes that will work but you wil end up with one big capfile.I tried this method and the cap was about 100 megs just for one intro.And not to mention the amount of vram it eats up.My 4GB card could hardly handle the intro nevermind the whole game.the video was a mere 320X240 resolution vid.

    That can be true, but a lot of that depends on several factors:

    1. The quality of the .jpg's themselves. This can be controlled/cut-down by the developer.

    2. The data in the .jpg, also dev-controlled.

    3. The number of frames used. This too can be controlled by the developer. For example, I took a video that was 150 megabytes and extracted only a certain number of frames, resized and degraded when necessary. The resulting sequence of frames came out to just 2 megabytes.

    Also consider that some people make larger games than the norm with 2D creators. My last project made it mandatory that there be lots of animations and therefore lots of animation frames. If one makes an FMV game or uses video in their game in general, they would expect to be making a bigger game than normal anyway, so the only time this could really become a game-killer is if the size were unexpected. The major objective here is for the developer to figure out how to reduce the size and still maintain a high-quality... it's the same challenge FMV game makers had back when they were still highly visible in the market.

  • I'd like to touch on #'s 1 and 2.

    1. I no longer use the AVI object, the timeline bar it has is a deal-breaker, and there probably won't be any upgrades to the object again. No problem however, because a guy sent me a pm about some free software that will perfectly extract every single frame of a video and export each frame as a .jpg file. So what you do is make the extraction, resize the files to whatever size you want it to be in your game window, and then run the frames as an animation. It works flawlessly. Here is the software suite:

    http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/free-dvd-video-software.htm

    With this, you'd easily be able to make FMV games, or use super high resolution animated video as your in-game background.

    2. I'm not 100% sure of the question, but I have a comment... I hope the Layout object continues to get attention in development. It's really useful, but the bugs did a bad number on my last project when I turned the .cap into an .exe. That was strange considering that it worked perfectly and never bugged as .cap.

  • Another thing you can do If you want to control zoom is use TimeDelta. Right at this moment as I type, I'm working on something using it for zooming objects in and out.

    The code looks like this:

    Event _____________________Action

    Key Up arrow is down >>>>>>>System: Set Zoom to (ZoomX + 1000 * TimeDelta, ZoomY + 1000 * TimeDelta)

    Event _____________________Action

    Key Down arrow is down >>>>>System: Set Zoom to (ZoomX - 5000 * TimeDelta, ZoomY - 5000 * TimeDelta)

    It moves very smoothly.

  • Before beginning, make sure you've created all 4 layouts already.

    1. The first thing you need to do is add keyboard commands. In any one of your layouts, right-click and you should get a menu. Select "Insert An Object". A window should pop up that says "Insert new object". Scroll down in that window and then find and double-click on the "Mouse & Keyboard" object.

    2. Now you need to create an event in the event editor. At the bottom of your screen, you should see a tab that says "Event Sheet Editor". Click that tab.

    3. Now, on that screen right click with your mouse and you should get a series of menu options. Click on "Insert Event".

    4. A window should pop up that says "Select An Object". Double-click on "MouseKeyboard".

    5. A window should pop up that says "Conditions for MouseKeyboard". Select which one best suits the type of function you want, then double-click it.

    As an example, if you select "On Key Pressed", you'll be taken to a menu. In that menu under "Key" you'll get a dropdown menu full of all the keyboard keys. So I'll select "Enter" and then "Finish". That creates the event.

    6. Now you need an action. So, right next to "On Key Enter pressed" click on "+New action". This brings up the "Select an object" window again. Double-click on "System". In the very top section you'll see a number of choices for switching to new layouts. I like to go with "Go to layout" because the structure and sequence of your layout order can change and as long as you've given each layout a name, you should have no hassles because you'll be sending the game to exact layout you want, by name. See, if you simply choose "Next layout" or "Previous layout", you may be sending the game to the wrong layout after you've made order changes to the layout tree.

    7. Okay, now you should be in the 'Parameters for System - Go to layout' window. Put in this exactly using quotation marks " ":

    "Screen 2"

    Click "Finish" and that's it. This is a decent base to start from with layout jumping inside a menu.

    Now, I should point out that you'll need to create a variable in order for the menu to be functional in a way where when you press up and down different commands will be able to be selected. I've had quite a few bugs with this myself, where sometimes when my object touched the other object to activate the variable it didn't trigger and then sometimes it does. It's strange. I think menu-making should get a facelift in Construct, like it should be an object with pre-programmed functions that have been rigorously tested to work, but maybe I feel that way because of the sometimes it triggers/sometimes it doesn't bug I've experienced...

  • don't know if this has been fixed in 0.99.95

    when a text object is inserted, to change the font we have to write the name of the font. It would be better to have a drop down menu since many times some fonts have very long names and remembering them or copying them is tedious.

    Amen! We need more fonts, too. I've been wishing for Westminster. I type it in but it doesn't go, so I guess it's not in Construct.

    I haven't used the later version of Construct, and please forgive me if this is already possible... but is there any way possible that we can get this to make life easier:

    Ability to take any number of images and fasten them together into a group, so we resize them inside the layout all at once by pulling the corners of the image target.

    This functionality is in the Wix website builder (wix.com). You should really check it out. A lot of its layout editor functions would be a Godsend in Construct, especially for building presentations more efficiently.

  • You don't need licensing rights to put a game on XBOX Live Indie Games. All that's required is a membership to the Creators Club, and xna. You would need rights to put a game on XBOX Live Arcade, however (XBLIG and XBLA are two separate channels). But technically, you wouldn't be dealing as just an Indie anymore in that case, because you'd be published by either Microsoft or by another known publishing entity.

  • If Construct is looking to grow and establish itself as one of the best, if not the best, Indie game development engine, then porting to consoles is an essential tool to provide. Torque is another engine that can provide this feature, as well as porting to Wii and iPhone, but charges between $100 - $1,500 depending on the number of porting licenses you're after.

    But I think with Torque (if I'm not mistaken), you still have to know C# to make anything decent.

    If Construct could start offering these porting capabilities too, then they can charge a competitive rate and share that market. I would happily pay for a license in order to port my games, and wouldn't expect those licenses to be free, even if the engine itself remains free-to-use.

    Agreed! I would gladly pay. As long as they allow me to do everything with events like I can now and not have to write in a language. I'd pay top dollar for that.

    EDIT: Look at what has just been posted on Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5647455/xbox-live-indie-clips-radiangames-inferno Xbox Live Indie games get a lot of press when they're made well.

    That game is going to do well and it's priced to move.

  • I think a lot of Game makers are made missing the point of what they're supposed to be. While it's great to be able to script, write language and whatever else, I've always felt that complication is supposed to be minimized greatly with these types of programs. Construct accomplishes that.

    I've used MMF a lot and the event system sucks. Plus, simple event operations are made more complicated than they should be with MMF. The only things MMF has over Construct is stability, exports to other platforms, and a better sound and music management (i.e. sounds and music automatically embed into an .exe). But in terms of intuitiveness and function, Construct is in a class of its own. Rapid prototyping is a breeze with Construct.

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  • I have seen the true power of Construct on Scirra's Russian site.ProjectStar2 is the most awesome game ive ever seen as far as 2d games go.And the Russian site itself is absolutely gorgeous.I have no idea how they got that plane to move sideways with the mouse and have the plane yaw at an angle left or right.My question is ,Can you create 10 different stages with the same quality gfx on every stage?.

    The boss is absolutely fantastic.Did they use python script for ProjectStar 2 or did they use Construct's built in library of event's?.After visiting the russian site i have more questions than ever before lol.

    Are you getting music when you play ProjectStar 2? I get sound effects but no music.

  • Do you happen to have a link to this site and/or game?

    http://scirraconstruct.ru/games/demo/project-star-2/

  • Incredible. Period.

  • Exporting animation sequences as a sprite sheet - with this we would be able to take all of the sprites of an animation, lasso them, select "export as sprite sheet" and then export.

    This would be another useful tool in order for Construct users to pass animations sets--in sequence--to team members who are working in language-based environments like, for example, xna/C#.

  • -Basic generic shapes - in addition to the basic line shape, I'd like to have circles, triangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, stars, ovals, etc. I like to build drawings using shapes and I've done this with the line object a few times in Construct. But having more shapes would be much more efficient... And I'd like to be able to double-click them and edit them in the image editor.

  • Or at least replace it with an existing open-source image/animation editing tool. Integrated. There's powerful stuff out there that is used in other projects. Don't reinvent the wheel, I say.

    If possible, G!MP integration would be sick.