This isn't exactly the optimal method, because if you need to rename it later, you have to recreate the animation. But it works. Mostly.

Create a new game, insert a sprite. Close the image editor. Click on the animator tab, then right click on 'angle' under the animation name 'Default'. Click remove. Right click default, click add new angle. Click add on the box that appears.

Then, before adding frames - that's important - Click on angle under default again, and look in the properties panel. What's that? Another animation name! The one that construct actually uses and that shows up in the debugger. Enter the animation name you want, then go about importing frames.

The conditions "if animation "animationname" is playing" will work again. Unless you use numbers in the animation names, which for some reason get ignored at runtime ("attack1" reads back as "attack").

You have to set the animation name before importing the frames, because that's the only time the box is accessible. It's the angle names that are returned, not the animation names.

Drat.

I used to use Modplug. Haven't tried it in years, but it does basically what you're describing via .mod, .s3m, etc.

http://www.modplug.com/

Good point, didn't think about animations. Don't know how fast the conversion process is - it might be possible for it to do it in real-time, but I guess there's no way to tell unless someone tries it (or emails the developer).

Found one.

http://physics2d.googlepages.com/

Video:

It apparently has a method of converting a bitmap into polygons used for physics.

The truth is, technology scares some people. A lot of people. Computers are complex, and a lot of 'casual' users don't know anything past the basics. The instant they read: "A required DirectX component, 'd3dx_30.dll', was not found." What's a .dll?! Yikes! Cancel. They don't want to screw anything up. For that matter, a lot of people who play casual games and such don't even know what direct X is.

We're developers and most of us have probably been tech-savvy most of our lives, so it's easy to not realize just how nervous the general populace is about computers.

As such, I would recommend close to what Attan suggested, so the box says: "Your version of DirectX is too old, click update to download the newest version." And a button named "More info" with all the technical details.

I'm not sure if 'update' is better than 'OK', but either way that sounds completely harmless and obscures the technical information that might scare them away. They know 'more info' is for advanced users, and that they don't have to know what it is - otherwise it would be displayed in the main message - and they don't need worry about the details.

It also makes the solution seem easier - they don't need to know what a .dll is, they just need to click that update button, which will update direct X - whatever that is - which will let them play. What's more, is it makes it seem safer. "Oh, I already have direct X? Well, updating it isn't any trouble, then."

Another feature request - a way to make physics objects ignore certain objects, and other instances of itself. My computer (A P3 600mhz) can handle a lot of physics objects easily, it's when they start stacking that it impacts the performance. By having them able to not collide with one another, stuff like debris becomes very easy to make, looks great, and doesn't cause too much of a performance hit with lots of stuff onscreen.

I know I asked for this one a while ago, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't forgotten.

Good point

You can already do this with events. try:

if angle is greater or equal to 90

if angle is less than 270

Rotate clockwise 1 degree

if angle is greater or equal to 270

or

if angle is less than 90

rotate clockwise 1 degree

That should work. You might have to use three events instead, with:

angle less than 90 and greater than or equal to 0 -> rotate clockwise 1 degree

and

angle greater or equal to 270 and less than 360 -> rotate clockwise 1 degree

Yep, they happen every time. I'll try to find what exactly is causing them and then send you the .cap. I've got one temp.exe crash narrowed down, and I'm about to post it to the bug tracker.

I second the above post

Alas, this version is a lot less stable for me. The game I'm working on won't run at all anymore, and even crashed when saving!

Getting music to fade should be easy with events. Use a variable for the volume and modify it as necessary.

If variable 'volume' is greater than x (x=desired volume) then subtract amount*timedelta from variable 'volume'.

Amount is how much you want per second. 100*timedelta will go from 100 to 0 in 1 second. 50 will take 2 seconds. If variable volume is 0, stop playing.

You can use a second variable to affect the amount, though that gets a little tricker.

Admittedly, my sound card isn't working, so I can't test it. But it should work in theory.