Tinimations's Forum Posts

  • mediafire.com/download/akq4mfpy110tbo6/Klang_17_6.zip

    Updated with new build. Should be a good boost to the playability. I would really appreciate some more feedback!

  • Thanks! Looking forward to reading the report. :)

  • Hi, I've been working on my latest project for roughly 400 hours now, and I've reached the point where I really could use some tester feedback. Even though it runs in the browser, I've designed it with Node-Webkit in mind. This is the pre, pre, pre-alpha of the game's prologue. Would really appreciated it if you could take the time to give it a look. And yes I've done everything except the sound myself.

    Small Screenshots:*Needs to be seen in motion*

    puu.sh/3fGDk.png

    puu.sh/3fGDt.png

    puu.sh/3fGDC.png

    puu.sh/3fGDP.png

    puu.sh/3fGDb.png

    Download URL: mediafire.com

    Controls:

    WASD - run and jump

    SpaceBar - Jump

    Arrow keys - Parry

    Enter - Pause

    Alt + F4 - Quit game

    F1 - Restart current layout

    Here's a couple of examples of the kind of feedback I'm looking for:

    How well does it run?

    Is the controls any good.

    Discovered any nasty glitches or bugs?

    Does the "timing" of the projectiles feel right?

    Is it any fun to play?

    What did you especially like?

    What did you really dislike?

    Again, any feedback is greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoy what I've cooked up so far.

  • hehehe. Oh lord. the biggest sprite on the map passes 20k in witdth. However, these sprites aren't present in the other maps, and it roughly runs the same. Can unoptimzations in one map somehow crunch performance in another? I know it sounds like a strech, but I if this was the only issue, every other level except tutorial level 4 should run smoothly?

    I'll take your word for it though. Gonna rework that level asap.

  • Yeah I am aware of the extreme unoptimization on this level. It's the ascending blocks you're referring to right?

    Edit: Can you point out the sprites that was 1888 x 2816?

  • Thanks a bunch. Do you know how important a GPU's memory is to the performance, or is everything dependent on the card's number-crushing capabilities?

  • The framerate is pretty much consistent, with an exception of the 4th stage's beginning. That's probably caused by a minor animation overload due to all of the unoptimized pillars.

    What specs does your comp have? I noticed that the two test computers getting slowdowns had a poor GPU.

    I monitored the framerate using fraps.

    The text thing can be a thing. I use those to print out values the game uses to spawn projectiles. I can probably just print the values to a global variable instead.

  • I still haven't been able to improve the framrate, even with all the tweaks proposed by you guys.

    Is it possible that duplicating layouts leave traces from the previous levels of some sort even if I erase all of the content from it? It's the only common factor I've been able to find between the levels with unnatural slow downs.

    Tokinsom: Can you please specify what you mean with heavy loops? I don't think I use heavy loops, but I do have a fair amount of "every tick" dependent events.

  • Tokinsom: Yes I mean all art. I erased absolutely all art, all shaders and every layout except the test stage (In the entire project). Still couldn't get it past 40 fps. The test level consisted of only one solid box and one platform box with a "scroll to" on.

    This ran on a laptop that on high performance runs the game at 60 FPS. This result is what I get when I run at low performance. I do however still get 60 FPS on low performance in a fresh project.

    pixel perfick: Thank you, and oh snap... Didn't know about that option. Will definately check that one out. The polygon trick seems clever too.

    Still weird though that I had performance issues without any objects or art assets whatsoever.

    Edit: Alright I didn't mention that this test stage originally was a duplicate of one of the bigger stages, and that I removed all of the content. When I tried to make a brand new layout within the same project I managed to get 60 FPS.

    I still have no clue what abominations is lurking inside the previous test stage though. I tried increasing the size to see if I could find any leftover objects, but I didn't find anything. I have a feeling whatever's slowing down this layout is the key to optimize the performance.

  • vee41 It's true that I don't use tiled backgrounds much, but the reasoning behind using sprites is that tiles can't be animated. If you try pressing the arrow keys you'll see that almost the entire environment reacts to it. I also didn't experience a huge performance boost even when completely erasing all art in the layout. The main performance issue lies somewhere else after all.

  • Alright I've been doing some experiments on a slower computer. It's clear that the filters had some effect on the performance, with removing them I got roughly a 15% performance boost. However completely removing the art barely made any difference.

    Here's the big issue I found. With all art gone, no shaders, with a canvas of only 1280x720 consisting of only two boxes (one platform and one solid), and no events running, the game only ran at 40 FPS. Mimicking the same setup in an empty project gave me flawless 60. These missing 20 frames is a big mystery too me. What settings can I have turned on/off in my main project to crunch the performance this much? It ran in preview mode on google chrome if that's any relevant.

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  • Clever. Will definately check it out when the levels are pretty much done. It probably should work, but would need a lot of extra work considering I've also animated the tiles.

    youtube.com/watch here's a video of a much older build. I've improved a fair amount on the art since then. I might be able to turn all the tiles into 9 images if I animate everything into the same sprite?

  • Tokinsom

    The levels vary in size.

    The first, second and third stage is 12500, 4096.

    The fourth (The one with actual rythm and music) is 24576, 4096

    I can probably reduce the height without too much effort on the 3 first, but the fourth used pretty much all of the space. How much does map size crunch the performance?

    Could you go a bit deeper on the whole "loading images into blanks and destroying them?" Can I have an animated environment using this technique?

    LittleStain:

    Yes I make sure that the explosions always gets destroyed. There's one place at the end of the fourth level where they don't disappear though. But that's just a quick bugfix away.

  • Before you read this I need to point out that I've read and fully understood Scirra's tutorial on optimizing for the game engine.

    Hi. I've been working on an adventure/rythm game for roughly a month now. I've designed the game with node-webkit in mind, due to my ambitions with the in-game graphics. I feel like I'm only getting started on the art side, but I'm already experiencing slow downs on fairly decent computers. It's obvious that I can do a lot more to optimize the game, but I need your help to figure out if the problem lies with the art assets, the use of filters or the game code?

    I would appreaciate it if someone could comment on the code, how I've implemented the assets, and generally how they liked playing the game.

    The project is in its very early stages, so constructive criticism is appreaciated.

    Here's the exe file: mediafire.com/download/4k3oylo9otft04o/Klang(2).zip

    Here's the Capx:

    mediafire.com/download/35cu4304mkwf163/Klang+Optimization.zip

    The heavy hitters on the art-side:

    The main character ("Player" object) sticks out since he has over 140 different animations, with an avarage of 8 frames each. Every frame has a size of 128x128.

    There's also the sprite based tile sheet lying in the "environment art" subfolder of the object type folder. Every tile has 9 frames at 256x256 size. I've refrained from using tiled backgrounds since I couldn't animate them.

    The assets that really kills it though is the Ascending blocks in the same folder. These are 9 frames each, with the baffling size of 256x1472 pixels. I know this is too much, and therefore have only used them at the first prototype stages I made called "Tutorial level 4" and "Test level 2". This is also where the slowdown was the most profound.

    Then there's the filters, which I'm unsure wether how much they really affect the performance. I use 3 filters on every stage, all of them are layout specific (Hue, Inverse and Grayscale). Can anyone comment on how much these filters halters the performance?

    Here's how the game works:

    Each level uses 2 event sheets. "Core mechanics indepentent" covers all of the game's core gameplay. The level specific sheets are "Tutorial level 1,2,3,4". However since I don't think the problem lies here, I won't go into too much detail.

    Again I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out here.

    Thanks

    Tom

  • I am amazed. I'll keep it in mind when designing further content.

    THANK YOU!