Ashley's Recent Forum Activity

  • I think distributing a graphics library is a good idea for beginners and helping people to learn how to make games. Nobody is forced to use a graphics library if one is provided, so the rest of us can safely ignore it A sound library would be especially useful, since good sound effects are hard to come by. But that's exactly the problem, good decent sound effects that I'm allowed to redistribute, as well as graphics, are hard work to find. If somebody knows a good pack that would be suitable, let me know...

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  • This is the .cap for the tool in this thread. It essentially just uses built in expressions and conditions to get information about your video hardware.

  • http://downloads.sourceforge.net/constr ... irror=osdn

    Construct 0.96 has now been released, featuring slow-motion effects, new audio features in Directsound, stability improvements, lowered system requirements, and the usual boatload of bug fixes.

    It's been a while since the last build, but it's summer in my local hemisphere, which calls for occasionally going outdoors! Changelog as usual is below.

    Don't forget you can support Construct's development by donating via the button on the main page.

    Behaviors

    • [ADD] Platform behavior: Compare Gravity
    • [FIX] Platform behavior: Hanging in some situations

    Event sheet editor

    • [FIX] Use expression now works
    • [FIX] 'Else' events now work. They can also be chained to create if-else if-else style events. Else events do not currently work after triggers.
    • [CHANGE] The 'Always' system expression has been renamed to 'Always (every tick)'. This is to better explain that it actually runs frequently as opposed to continuously.
    • [CHANGE] 'Start of application' removed: use 'Start of layout' on first layout instead.

    General

    • [FIX] Deleting objects in cloned layouts now doesn't crash
    • [FIX] Removing event sheets now closes all relevant windows before deleting (fixes crash)
    • [FIX] Saving and loading of Layer Zoom X/Y rate
    • [FIX] Items now don't repeat in the recent files area
    • [CHANGE] Removed 'Exchange' button on Insert object dialog until it is completed
    • [CHANGE] The way plugins are configured has been changed to be more reliable. This should fix people who cannot use the IDE due to plugin errors on startup.

    Layout editor

    • [FIX] Paste clone now pastes in correct position
    • [FIX] Layout editor rendered effects incorrectly when zoomed

    Picture editor

    • [FIX] VRAM usage now reduced when using the picture editor. Construct may now work on 64/32MB cards - please test and let me know.
    • [FIX] Errors while opening the picture editor should be properly reported and not crash.

    Plugins

    • [ADD] Directsound: Effects system. Allows for multiple effects to be queued up on to one or all sounds; supports Chorus, Compression, Distortion, Echo (Delay), Environmental Reverberation (via presets), Flanger, Parametric Equalizer and Gargle.
    • [ADD] Directsound: Time scaling option: when enabled, all playing samples adjust frequency according to the runtime's time scaling.
    • [ADD] Directsound: Epilogue time option: optionally add silence to the end of all samples, to prevent effects like Reverb being cut short when the sound ends.
    • [ADD] Particles: 'One shot' mode, to act like an explosion. Destroys itself when all particles have disappeared.
    • [ADD] 3D Box: 'Z buffer' property, which can be turned off to allow for certain 3D effects
    • [ADD] File: FileListFiltered expression, to retrieve filtered list of files in a directory, eg. File.FileListFiltered("C:\", "*.mp3")
    • [FIX] Common dialog issues with getting selected file
    • [FIX] Sprite: 'On animation finished' and 'Is animation playing' (using named animations) now work correctly
    • [FIX] Edit box: Handling of new line characters
    • [FIX] Function object: Isolated condition aliasing bugs (still known bug in inline calls)
    • [FIX] Mouse & Keyboard: Can detect mouse over text objects
    • [FIX] Box object: now draws pixel-perfectly same size at runtime as in the layout editor
    • [CHANGE] DirectSound 'Set Frequency': Now uses a frequency multiplier instead of absolute frequency
    • [CHANGE] DirectSound caching engine rewritten to perform better and work in a way compatible with the effects engine

    Runtime

    • [ADD] Time scaling: allows for slow-motion and fast-motion effects, integrates with Directsound to adjust audio frequency when 'Auto time scaling' enabled in Directsound
    • [ADD] 'DisplayDevice' expression; returns display device name, eg. "NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT"
    • [FIX] Effects using pixelWidth and pixelHeight now have correct values for zoomed layers; affects blurs and warps etc.
    • [FIX] 'End of Application' now triggers.
    • [FIX] Runtime crash when incomplete containers in the layout.
    • [FIX] Crash in debugger when changing layouts.
    • [FIX] Dragging titlebar sometimes stuck to mouse.
    • [FIX] Syntax error using Mouse & Keyboard object in Python applications.
    • [FIX] Crash changing effect parameters with an expression in the same object.
    • [FIX] Crash transitioning to the same layout. Transitions to restart the layout are not supported so in this case the layout restars without a transition.
    • [FIX] 'Timer equal to...' condition not triggering after a layout restart.
    • [CHANGE] F7 no longer shows VRAM usage messagebox at runtime.

  • Hmm... I just checked and the file object doesn't have filtered file lists yet, so you'll have to wait for the next build! Which hopefully won't be long...

  • Well you could just have buttons, which when clicked, pause/play/load new music and plays it.

  • Directsound can play music from files so that's easy enough, but there is currently no option to keep the images external. However, the Sprite object has the action 'Load animation frame from file', which may come in useful.

  • Construct doesnt have any sprite libraries yet, so... try:

    • Contacting an artist
    • Googling 'royalty free graphics', 'sprites', etc
    • Buy a graphics library - don't ignore it because you have to pay - often libraries are fairly cheap, high quality and you get loads of graphics for your game. Spriting is highly skilled work, which is why you'd be lucky to find somebody generous enough to give substantial work away for free!

  • Should be out today, pending a few problems with the picture editor.

  • Yes, Python gives you full access to all the objects in the layout. You can probably pretty much python script an entire game, but I don't think anybody's finished a python-only game yet.

  • Only 'Play Music' works with MP3 files. Sound effects have to be PCM WAVs.

    Also, I think you should use backslashes (\) not forward slashes (/) for file paths...

  • Hmm, add an option to turn the motion blur off because it runs pretty slow here - nice concept for a game though!

    Also you really really shouldn't use fixed framerates for games. Go for V-synced. It really makes the display much better quality. Also, 5x motion blur at a fixed framerate of 50FPS will end up putting 10 actual frames on the screen per second, so it looks like it's running badly because you've actually limited it to 10 FPS.

  • I noticed that Animation Finished doesn't work (and was reported). Then I noted animation playing didn't work.

    Both these are fixed in the next build, which should be out soon. If there are still problems with animations after that, add them to the tracker and I'll try and get on top of them ASAP.

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Ashley

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