I totally agree that load time would make a custom app like that painful -- and in order to support animations, the app would have to have some sort of extension / built-in support for data exchange. I'm cool with that, if that's an option on the table, and if it's not, then I have another suggestion that might be even easier to implement:

Have import/export formats which allow us to put out entire animations / directions / spritesheets / whatever from a single file or set of files. MMF has this, and it's had it since CNC but the support has been awful and the importers have all sorts of problems with crap like transparency, bounding boxes and the like. Again, when I was working on my own sprite editor, one of the key features for using it over the built-in editor was to be able to export to the clipboard (for single frames) which replaced (0,0,0) with (8,0,0) and transparent with black cause that's what MMF wanted, and animations as bounding-box strips for it's "multiple frames" importer. This was extremely useful for the few people that knew how to utilize it, despite the bugs, and I think it would be very easy to implement a similar feature which would be unobtrusive and an excellent alternative to copying/pasting everything in an AO by hand.

I doubt the feature was used much because they never fixed any of the bugs with it, and it was hella annoying. However, this sort of import is perfect for making everything in a different editor, because then all the programmer has to do is write an export filter for it (in the case of existing software) or build in an exporter into their own program which will take an image/animation format Scirra likes.

It would be cool if we could specify an editor we'd want to use in the settings, and Scirra passed on the arguments of the active object/sprite you'd want to edit to that application and waited for the process to terminate. Ideally then, you could use whatever editor you wanted -- MS Paint, Graphics Gale, whatever. I've been working on a sprite editor myself on and off for the past several years, so obviously I've thought a lot about what sort of programming can be done to make the sprite creator's life easier xD

I'm sure everything could be modularized out as resource, including levels -- but that would probably end up making the frame editor a lot more generalized as a tile editor if you were gonna do that. As a solution, in MMF my approach was to re-impliment a tile loader from scratch to allow for user-created levels for my game. Many MMF games use that now, but it's not exactly the most easy thing to impliment.

It really depends on the sort of tile-based (or whatever) solution you end up making for your game, because in a lot of these cases I'd wonder why not just release the entire source file to the game if you don't want to impliment your own tile engine.....

Alternatively, we could also have a tile blitter extension on top of the current coordinate-based system which makes tile-based games a lot faster to implement these sort of levels made with dedicated external tile editors, or "in-game editing" of the tiles ala Sonic debug mode, but hey, if we're gonna do that why not also implement a text-blitter for graphical fonts too while we're at it, and then we wouldn't need to include vector font files in the first place XD

I like your guys ideas :V

the one feature I always wished drawline had was the ability to draw an invisible line, so we could create vector normals for collisions in a hand-drawn map or something <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_cool.gif" alt="8)" title="Cool" />

liam: Have you tried seeing how construct apps act in WINE yet?

Hello

I've got a couple of questions regarding the audio system being used in Scirra. Right now, am I correct to assume that Scirra currently uses DirectShow for its BGM and sound FX mixing? If so, is this the long-term solution being proposed for the system? As a musician and gamedev both by hobby, my format of choice has always been modules for games, since they provide excellent sound at a minimal space and CPU overhead cost. Unfortunately, the options available in terms of DirectShow filters for modules are inadequate to say the least. (Memory management problems, problems looping, etc.)

I was wondering what the reception would be towards using an audio system beside directshow or instead of it for the BGM, now that the project has gone open-source. When Josh Whelchel (Twilight Terror) was working on the open-source WSF format (which, unfortunately, I can't find any info online anymore!), I had recommended to him to try the Modplug replay engine, which at the time had just recently gone GPL. Later, it turns out that most of the hard work was already done for us by a nice guy called entheh who created the DUMB Sound Library, which is derived from Modplug. This formed the basis of WSF's replayer, and the replayer in the (now official) MMF extension ModFX3/ModFusion.

I fully support the DUMB replayer, since it's free and contains no nasty commercial license caveats like the other popular solutions (such as FMOD and BASS) used in game making tools like GameMaker, Blitz Basic, and MMF2. It's also based on one of the best replayer engines around, Modplug, which is used in other open-source projects such as XMMS and VideoLAN VLC. Module formats are still a quite popular solution for game developers on the PC and especially the emerging next-gen handheld market due to their small size, portability, consistent sound and low CPU useage.

Would you possibly consider supporting tracker module formats in scirra in the future?

Hiya.

With Construct being GPL now, is there any roadmap in the forseeable future to porting the engine to OpenGL, where it would be easier to make the interface cross-platform? I'm aware that being tied into windows widgets would really hamper this to begin with, but I'm interested in the prospects.

I wonder how this would jive with GPL licensing. The resultant code would most likely use large chunks of code from Scirra itself -- think back to that Jamagic wrapper object they made for MMF that you could do anything Jamagic could through it. Same for PureBasic. Hmmmmmmm.........

if a "quick hotspot" (alt+numerical keypad in the location) hasn't been created, that's something to consider as well

I'm surprised nobody's recommended Intel. Right now the Core 2 Duo's are more energy efficient and faster than AMD's at the same clockspeed.... I'm not sure if AMD still has the price advantage but if you're going to be paying for a high-end CPU why not get the current leader in the game? Also, it would probably go better with a GeForce since AMD is now going to focus on coming up with ways to exploit their new property (ATI)...

P.S. I seen that the 7600 GT's are going on clearance now for about USD $40, so get them while the getting's good (PCIe)