The reason you can't zoom out is probably due to the layout size being the size of the window. To zoom out you need either a larger layout or to set 'unbounded scrolling' in the layer's properties.

A way around that is to put the light on a separate layer, set the shadow opacity to 100 and the layer opacity to 50.

Aw, man. Hope you get better soon!

This would be a good time to mention the bug where platform objects with mirroring disappear when facing left on vista machines is still there.

I have a lot of objects in the games I'm making, and a lot of them are background objects that aren't coded. Searching for objects in the various editors (expression editor, place object at, etc.) takes a while because it's cluttered with so many objects and they're not in any sort of order that I can tell - the order randomizes itself a little bit every time a .cap is opened.

What I would like to suggest is collapsable object groups (perhaps based upon families) and alphabetical object sorting. That would make it much easier to find objects.

That .cap doesn't run on my machine unless I export it to an .exe.

Also, any chance of penumbras at some point? It looks like that's what's trying to get rendered there.

Edit: Restarted my comp and it runs. Oddly enough, it's running as if it has motion blur on, but it's set to off.

Use round(number) in the expression editor. There's also expressions for rounding up and down rather than rounding to the closest, but I don't remember what they are - they're in the math section of the system object.

What I would love is true 3d controls for a sprite, which would do exactly what you're asking. Mode 7 is basically a sprite that can be rotated in all directions, and placed in all directions (x, y, and z). If we had this, not only could we do 'mode 7' type stuff, but we could have true parallax scrolling, where the closer an object is to the camera the faster it moves. This could create some awesome perspective effects.

I know there's parallax effects via layers, but with a lot of objects on screen at different distances, it doesn't work well. It would be much more elegant to move them in 3d space - which would also sort them correctly (z order) and accurately resize them according to distance as well.

Example: http://ps2.ign.com/dor/objects/714612/d ... 43437.html

I read "I've always wondered how a shoot em up game would play if the laws of physics actually did apply to the game." as "I've always wondered how a gradius type game would play if the laws of physics actually did apply to the game."

Which would obviously be terrible, as gradius requires the unrealistic movement (lack of momentum, 8 directional) to be playable, especially at the harder difficulty levels. But for the type of game you're making, it would work great, and is the norm, as far as I know. Didn't mean to suggest your idea was bad.

Gradius would be unplayable if it had those controls. That's a great example of 'realism doesn't make a great game.'

Oh, great idea. Much appreciated!

Edit: misread reply.

There are a whole lot of events after those, though. Doesn't that kind of make it a little redundant, asking an event to check if the group it's in is even active? Isn't that the point of deactivating the group?

Regardless, I'm happy to use the 'group is activated' condition - I can't find it anywhere, though.