I got kinda curious as to how Clickteam was doing, so I reinstalled MMF2 and ran the update. Holy crap... that program is confusing as hell

Seriously, I think I've been spoiled by how easy Construct is to use. Hell, it took me a second to even remember how to add a movement to an active object. Granted, I haven't used it about a year, but still. I remember opening Construct for the first time, and it actually made sense.

I also checked out their HWA. They're still way behind Construct in that department:

[quote:22oq5g7c]Just for info, what doesn't work or will be improved :

• full screen (doesn't work).
• transitions (don't work).
• some graphical extensions don't work (Screen Capture, Lens, Viewport, Get Pixel, Flame [hehe ], Alpha Channel, etc).
• others work but are not optimized (text blitter, speech bubble, etc).
• fine collisions between rotated or stretched sprites are slow.
• the quick backdrop object in ellipse mode is slow.
• there are still problems when you resize the frame window.
• effects on layers will be optimized in a future version.
• an option to prevent resampling when the "resize to fill screen" option is used will be added.
• a few options are still missing in the effects, to read the background surface behind the objects.
• the background behind dialog boxes is not correctly refreshed.

Yikes. They've been at it for how long now? And that's their full-time job. Uh... I think.

I also checked out the Phizix object, and I gotta say that thing is confusing as hell. Instead of assigning physics properties to individual objects, you have to do everything from the event editor and run it through the phizix object itself. So if you want a sprite to have physics, you have to first create an event where you set up a "body" with mass in phizix, then you have to create a polygon for the body (yes, in the event editor, like... with just numbers ), then create an event where you attach the sprite to it, then create an event where the object is updated in the physics world. And you have to do all that in the event editor. Talk about user-unfriendly.

Sure, they have a couple neat features that we don't have, like slider joints and collision threshholds (woulda been springs too, but Dave or Rich (can't remember) said we were getting those soon).

I dunno, I guess I'm trying to say thanks for making Construct, guys. Otherwise I'd probably still be struggling with MMF.

The number pad will line up the hotspots for you. 7 to put it top-left, 5 to center it, 6 for middle-right, etc.

But no, there's no way to type in coordinates for it yet. I believe Ash has said it's on the to-do list but I could be wrong.

Skybox doesn't seem like it would be a skybox. Does the background move? I might try it out later if it does. Seriously, though, very nice demo selection.

Why doesn't it seem like it would be a skybox?

So whats this rumor about us getting a network plugin soon? I do agree that the info on this topic is very fragmented.

In the latest construct release thread. The one stickied at the top of this forum.

Edit:

Ah, but I see you already found it.

Hmm, I just realized that Set force is a very innaccurate way of doing this simulation... Add force yields much better results. For instance, under Set force, a large body of objects will move towards a single object at the same rate that the single object moves towards the large body.

In reality, the large body has more cumulative pull, so they would be drawing the single object faster than the single object would be drawing in the large body. In other words, the single object would be moving much more.

This can be corrected by changing Set force to Add force.

I've also stabilized the simulation somewhat by setting Linear and Angular dampening to 50% and elasticity to 0%. It's till possible to go into a "death spiral" but it's much less likely and takes lots more objects to do it.

But the major problem is that when there are a lot of objects in the center of the screen, and you place one at the edge, the Add force makes it move way too fast towards the group.

I've also removed the 100ms timer, the nested loop actually doesn't cause as much of a performance lag as I thought it would.

Anyway, here's my tinkering with it: http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php?id ... y+mess.cap

You could make two different bullets.

but the odd behavior i noticed in link's, is how putting a heavy mass and light mass next to eachother will result in them moving out of the screen instead of the green simply coming to rest next to the gray.

also, orbiting objects almost always manage to slingshot farther away, rather than coming closer and closer.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be very stable. Still, getting pretty close though as each object actually does have it's own pull.

Yep. Pretty easy to do, really.

http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php?id ... tretch.cap

Left click/right click in the window.

Though it doesn't respect Point scaling

No, not yet. There is apparently an online plugin in the works.

Hey David, Ashley, or Rich, maybe one of you should sticky this thread, seeing as how this question comes up every five minutes.

That's really all that's worth using it for.

For now anyway. I'm sure it'll be plenty useful in the future, at least for some people. It just need a little more basic functionality. Being able to save your palette, remember the last too used, ability to create new frames, along with animation preview. Little things like that. It doesn't need all the capabilities of Photoshop or anything. That's what Photoshop is for. Things like layers and tablet support are really asking an awful lot of a simple little graphics editor.

Though no matter how useful it gets I'll probably still just use Photoshop anyway because that's what I'm used to. And because I can't work without my layers and tablet support.

Hmm, your problebly right though it is strange that the Goomba works perfectly when there is only one of them.

The reason to use physics is mainly becouse i want the Goombas to interact with the other objects.

If you want built in functionality like gravity/collision without having to code it by hand, just use the Platform behavior on them. At the beginning of the layout do "Goomba: Start ignoring user input." Then you can manually set the x speed and such with events.

Okay, I just took a look at your .cap... and it is working.

It just looks like it's not.

What's happening is your physics goombas are getting stuck on the pipes. They're trying to turn around, but they can't.

Try changing the goomba's physics settings like so:

Linear Dampening: 0

Contact Friction: 0

Contact Elasticity: 100

World Friction: Exact

World Solver: Exact

You will see that the goombas do have a mind of their own. They still get stuck, but not as much.

I think the reason they weren't breaking loose of the pipes until the other goomba hit the pipe is there was a transfer of force through the objects that was big enough to knock it free. Which is strange, because the pipes and ground are set to Immovable. I don't really understand it.

Anyway, it's all just a byproduct of trying to use physics for a platformer. Theoretically it can be done, but it's a weird use of the physics engine. And if it's a weird use of the physics engine, you're going to get weird results. My recommendation is that you stick to non-physics behaviors for tasks that don't need physics.

And yes, I understand that you want to use physics because it's easier... but in practice it just isn't easier.

Set alterable value

What is this MMF crap? gbt dailyclick