MSD3000's Forum Posts

  • 15 posts

  • Thanks for the help. I made one of the parts a container and pretty much swapped out the family reference for it across the board and it appears to be working perfectly, with only minor extra code changes.

    I went with the base part of the sprite as the container, since it allows me to spawn the base on the floor. Which will be quite the help.

  • Ah, I thought containers might be the answer. But I'm afraid I know even less about them than Families. Looks like I've got some studying and coding to do. Thanks for the advice.

    Would you recommend that the two sprites be put into an invisible container sprite that handles the variables for both? Or just use one of the sprites themselves (the body)? Or would it make any difference?

  • I've got a plant enemy. It has a stationary plant sprite, and a head sprite that rotates and fires spores at the player. Simple enough, right? Well, no.

    The plant starts at 1% Size, when it comes on-screen it enlarges to 100% size and begins it's normal behavior. When it takes 4 shots from the player, it shrinks back to 1% and Destroys itself. That's the theory anyway.

    I've got both sprites in a family, with health, size and enemy phase all in Family Instance Variables. All code regarding it's size and health only reference the family variable.

    Everything works as it should BUT, when the player kills the enemy only the part that took the hit will shrink (both will destroy once it hits 1% size) and I need both parts to shrink the same way they both grew at the start.

    shared-assets.adobe.com/link/164fe77e-3c15-48a6-4249-eadf66557223

    I'm sure my code is rather un-streamlined, but I've tried to annotate everything to help.

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  • Thanks for the advice. I was afraid it would wind up being a "symptom of the system" type of thing, but I guess it can't be helped. At least knowing the issue lets me plan around it, like you said. Cheers 🙂

  • Silly question probably. But I'm having issues with adding (or subtracting) numbers in specific amounts every tick.

    Example: I have a sprite with a "Size" instance variable, which then sets the sprite's scale. It starts at 0.1, which would equal 10% when setting the spite's scale. Upon being on screen, every tick it will add 0.01 to the instance variable, up to 1, which would be 100% scale. At that point it triggers another action and stops.

    My issue is that the trigger is looking for PRECISELY 1. And the system is somehow returning 0.999999997, when I watch the variable count up in debug mode. So the trigger never activates, as the number never reaches exactly 1. This doesn't really make sense to me, as the increment it's set to add isn't even close to that decimal point. I can only assume it's an issue with the every tick behavior? Would I be better off using a specific delta-time action? I'm sure this is basic level programing knowledge. But I'm willing to look dumb, if it helps me eventually be smart 😅

  • I've had similar problems on my home computer. It doesn't work in the new Chromium Edge (fresh install). But it worked in Chrome. I use Chromium Edge at work (work computer) to access Construct 3, and it has no issue. Currently at work, but I can post the error code later when I get home.

    Otherwise, really loving C3 so far. You guys really improved over C2!

  • I greatly appreciate all the input from everyone on this topic. I'm an artist, not a trained programmer. (I have a methodical nature that seems to work well for it, just lack the "language skills" of using direct code) So it's great for you to break this issue down like you have.

    My intentions for the game are to release on Steam, and WiiU later(probably NX at this point). So I think pegging the fps will be the easiest and best solution for me, as I won't be worrying about performance issues on mobile platforms.

    I've really been enjoying the delicious frustration of game making, thanks to Construct. Learning skills I never knew I had. So thanks again to Scirra and their awesome community

  • That's an intriguing way to handle it. Is the framerate of the game running directly tied to how often physics calculates, then? If so, could I instead force the game to run at 33fps or something lower than 60fps in order to even out things without killing performance on lower systems?

    I'm researching things and seeing that dt (Delta Time) is not framerate dependant. Maybe if I find a way to change the values for jump sustain to dt instead of milliseconds, things would be standards across all systems. Or am I thinking in circles?

    I'm just going to keep adding edits as I find stuff I guess all the calculations for behaviors do indeed use dt already. So that leaves me back at square one, with no idea why I'm getting different results on different systems. And there seems to be no easy way to throttle fps to 30fps, just keep them from going under 30 fps (or under 60fps) which would make the game play in slow motion on lower systems. Not a great option either...hrmmm...think think think...

    Further edit: Well I tried your suggestion of setting the minimum fps to 60fps, and that does seem to even out the experience for each of my test systems, just not the way I expected. The high end system now mimics the jump strength of the low end system (i.e. the largest jump), where I was expecting the low end systems to mimic the jump of the higher end system (the lowest jump). This boggles my mind as I would expect the higher frame rates on the more powerful system were what caused the smaller jumps, so forcing all games to process at that level should have made all the jumps small...getting a headache.

    Anyway, despite my confusion over this, your suggestion has fixed my problem as far as I can tell. So thank you Sethmaster

  • Hello, I've got a platformer game under production. I've decided to put the code for the game's main character in it's own event sheet. And from there, I put together a big test room for me to gauge the character's maximum comfortable jumps and whatnot. You know, basic things to help build tighter levels.

    My problem is that character jumps further on some machines than others. In fact the character's ability to jump seems tied to the processing power of the machine the game is running on. The slower the processor, the better the jump.

    Test machines so far are:

    a 2 year old Cintiq Companion Tablet (slowest)

    a 3 year old desktop pc, Intel i5 3570k (mid)

    a brand new desktop, Intel i7 6700k (fastest)

    The player character is using Jump Sustain (no special coding) for more natural jumps and I'm thinking that is where the problem lies. On the Cintiq (where the code was made) the character can use clear hurdle of 360 pixels, with about 15 pixels to spare. On the 3 year old desktop, it clears with about 2 pixels. On the new machine, it clears with NO pixels to spare.

    The issue REALLY becomes a problem when I put double jump into the mix. The Cintiq can clear a hurdle of 720 pixels with little issue, the mid range can clear it on a really good jump, the fast machine CANNOT because you would literally have to have a perfect double jump.

    I'm trying to make a game with tight, responsive controls. But that seems moot if I make the game for mid-range machines and it becomes unplayable on high-end machines, or target high-end machines and it becomes super-easy and floaty on low-end machines.

    A possible solution would be to ignore Jump Sustain in favor a fixed jump. But that just kills a lot of the gameplay value for me. Does anyone else have a suggestion?

    If anyone is curious, the specs for the player character are as followed:

    Max Speed 440

    Acceleration 800

    Deceleration 1500

    Jump Strength 850

    Gravity 2500

    Max fall speed 1000

    Double jump Enabled

    Jump Sustain 250

  • Thank you, I successfully deleted the registry data and did a clean install. Sadly this has not fix my error, but it's at least (hopefully) taking me closer to figuring things out. I will post about the error on another thread.

  • Hello, I am having issues with Construct 2 on one machine, while it runs fine on another. I'm trying to widdle down possible reasons for this by completely uninstalling Construct 2 from my system, but it still seems to be leaving some files and/or registry entries on the system.

    I've uninstalled like normal through Windows (Windows 10), deleted any remaining folders in the programs folder on the system, and then reboot the system to clear system memory. But when I re-install cleanly, Construct 2 pops up with all my settings, license activation, even recent files list as if nothing happened. Obviously it is leaving something behind, and my errors persist as well. Do I need to get a professional registry cleaner to wipe Construct off my system? That would seem rather excessive for a program which can supposedly run off a usb drive.

  • Thanks for the hasty reply. I've tried placing a few of the asset tiles in at their normal size, without re-sizing in the game engine and the issue is still there. I'm just not sure how to handle it.

    I've looked for other examples of the issue in some of the samples that come with construct. The space blaster's background panels have the issue, and they seem to solve it by overlapping the artwork by a couple pixels. The ghost shooter's tiled panels DON'T seem to have the issue for whatever reason.

    I admit I don't have much experience working the engine, I'm the art dude and working in Construct is not my area of expertise. I'm also a bit (lot) anal about pixel perfection in my work normally. If there is a simple option to turn off aliasing or whatever for certain layers, that fixes this issue, great. If not, I'd just like to know what I'm dealing with so I can compensate my work to accommodate the engine.

    It wouldn't even be such an issue, if the slight fuzziness of the edges didn't cause nasty visible seams during gameplay, especially while moving.

  • Thanks 80bit, I've sent you en email with one of the pngs I've used. I am not actually tiling the files, as a script. I am placing them by hand to create the level, so I guess that counts as sprites.

    I use Illustrator to create the asset to a certain size, making sure it is exactly even as pixels (no decimals). I then export to web through Illustrator at 150% for extra fidelity, in case I need to size things differently in-engine. Even when shrunk down to 100%, the fuzziness on the edges of the pngs remain.

  • I am in the process of building and placing the background tiles for my current game project. But the edges of the tiles are fuzzy for no apparent reason in the game engine and it causes visible seams.

    I am taking care to save each piece to precise sizes so there are absolutely no transparencies on the edges of the tiles (png's). I even check the artwork once created, so there is no"fuzziness". When placed in the game engine, the edges become blurred by about 1 pixel.

    Is this an aliasing issue? Something I can turn off when dealing with solid, un-moving assets on background layers? Or am I just going to have to "chalk" all the edges of my tiles with extra bits?

  • I apologize if this is something that has been handled previously. I've looked around the forums and guides and not found what I'm looking for, so I'll try this:

    I've seen everything on sprite sheets, as one solid block that's animated, but I'd like to try something more advanced; sprites that are made of several other sprites (sub-sprites?). Think ye-olde Genesis title Vector Man, for the basic use of it.

    I'd be interested in trying to animate a sprite that has several segments. A segmented worm for one. And also, I'm trying to figure out how to properly animate a creature that would use it's tail as a grappling hook, and swing from it. The tail would need to stretch, obviously, and move independently of the rest of the sprite.

    Is Construct 2 even capable to such things on it's own? Or am I going to have to dip my toes into some hot Java to figure this out? Last time I did any coding, it was for making madlibs in Quick Basic -.-;

    I'll be your best friend forever if you can help!

  • 15 posts