I need help! I can't find a good solution to slopes in the new Platform School tutorials. I've been racking my brain for two days on this now. The platform behavior itself navigates up and down slopes just fine. That's not the problem. The issue I'm having is lining the player up with the slopes.

In the old tutorials, the player and the hitbox were separate objects. That means that if the hitbox detected a slope, then the player sprite could set it's angle, and be moved downward a few pixels from the hitbox, in order to line itself up with the slope.

Here's the problem: In the new tutorials, I've gotten rid of the separate hitbox and I'm using David's new collision mask feature instead. So... setting the angle of the sprite now also sets the angle of the hitbox, which I have found to be rather glitchy.

Also, I am using the "Auto Rotate" and "Auto Mirror" features so that the player sprite only needs one animation angle. Setting the angle manually seems to work well enough, but if you're not actively setting the angle then the Auto Rotate feature kicks in and makes the player face where it thinks he should be facing. It's not a bug, since it's working like it's supposed to, it's just an inconvenience.

So, here's where the challenge comes in. I may just be going about this the wrong way, and someone out there might have a better solution. I'm inviting people to help make the player line up with slopes. Here's the .cap:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/slopetest.cap

v0.99.82

The solution you create has to fit in with the rest of the tutorials, so there are a few rules. They are as follows:

• You must use the Charlie sprite as-is. You cannot add angles or change the Charlie sprite, it's hotspots, or it's collision mask. You may add image points if need be.
• You must use the Auto Rotate and Auto Mirror features.
• You cannot use any behavior on Charlie other than Platform.
• I would rather you not use a separate "detector" object. If it's completely necessary to your solution, then that's okay.
• You may add any families, variables, or attributes that you need. The slope objects already have a custom "Slope" attribute assigned to them.
• Your solution must be simple enough for a newbie to understand. You can use complicated math as long as you are able to explain it to a layman. (In other words, if I don't understand it then it's too complicated )

You can use any method you see fit to make running up and down the slopes look natural. I will pick the easiest and best looking solution and incorporate it into the tutorial, where you will get credit.

With the guidelines I've set it might not actually be possible to do what I'm asking. All I know is that what I've tried hasn't worked. Hopefully someone can find a way, but if not then that's okay... I just won't have slopes in the new Platform School tuts.

And thanks in advance for the help

Hey gammabeam, you can get a smooth lerp-like effect this way without actually using lerp:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/lerpfish.cap

I hope this is the effect you were going for. The fish thing is rotating towards an image point on the arrow. And you can change the rate at which it follows the mouse by changing the *4 part of the equation to something else. Higher numbers will rotate faster.

All three boxes in your example show up fine for me. You are still using 0.99.82 for this?

Edit:

I just remembered that David included a new 3D Box runtime in his 0.99.83 updates, which I am using. That's probably why it's working for me

So yeah, this is fixed in the next build, but the problem I linked to above still exists. I should probably install vanilla 0.99.82 for comparison tests...

So you want it to keep track of the number of total degrees it's rotated since the start of the game? Like, it will return 1080 degrees if it's rotated three times?

This is unrelated to scrolling (that works fine for me in the newest version). This is where only 3D boxes overlapping or contained in the original screen resolution (the outlined area starting from 0,0) are visible. I have a .cap that demonstrates it. Is there a way to attach it to my post, or do I need to use an upload site?

You can post attachments in the Uploads forum, as long as they're small. As for free hosting, the preferred method on the forum is Dropbox because you can easily post direct links. Box.net is also pretty decent.

Is it this issue, by any chance?

I see. Well, the main thing to keep in mind is that you need to balance your jump strength with your jump gravity. That will allow you to change the speed of your jump. You just need to experiment with it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/jumping.cap

v0.99.82

I made an example of two objects that jump the same height, but not the same speed. It took me only a moment of tweaking the settings to get them to do that. You can make all sorts of different jump styles by altering these settings, from floaty, round-topped jumps to sharp triangle jumps.

The jump strength is the speed at which the jump starts, not the height of the jump. But as soon as the jump starts gravity is going to affect it. From your description it sounds like you want a perfectly linear jump that is 150 pixels per second until you reach 450 pixels in height, at which point you begin to fall. If you ask me, that would be a rather awkward looking jump. I've included an example of what that would look like as well. Gravity affects the speed of the object immediately, so you can't really have a consistent speed of 150px per second during the length of your jump because it just wouldn't look natural.

What I would recommend is that you make a testing playground for your platform object. Set some benchmarks, like that dashed line I have in my example. Tweak the settings until you get the thing jumping at exactly that spot and at the speed you need.

Otherwise, yes it's perfectly all right to make your own custom platform behavior that does what you need to do. Others have done so when they needed features that weren't available with the platform movement.

Mr. K, are you by any chance using Unbounded Scrolling? I can confirm that the box does this for me when that's checked. It disappears near the edge of where the layout is.

Otherwise it seems to be fine.

Edit:

Made an example .cap:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/529356/3dboxdissapears.cap

I'll post the bug to the tracker if you haven't already.

Did you allow 3D layering for the layer the box is on?

Is there a question you need help with in this thread? Or did you accidentally post a new thread instead of a reply to your old one?

Anyway, do whatever you want with your game, but please don't go around saying things like "jump sustain doesn't work," or that you "can't make a double-jump with the default platform behavior," because it's not true. I can guarantee you that they do work, and you're either doing something wrong, or what you want to do is really weird and non-standard and you're just not explaining it clearly. Regardless, if you don't ever show examples, then you're not going to get any help.

The least you could do if you expect proper help is to recreate the problem in a blank .cap with plain circles and squares and tell us what you expect it to be doing and what it's doing wrong.

Also, no one is going to steal your game. But if you're really concerned with theft then ask someone here who knows what they're doing to look at your .cap privately and pm it to them.

The bottom line is you are only going to get proper help if you allow us to properly help you.

Good luck with your game.

As far as I know, this thread was never stickied. At least I don't recall ever seeing it stickied.

Anyway, a list of third party plugins would probably be better suited on the wiki, or in the Addons forum, or better yet both.

Go ahead and keep maintaining your list, it's still helpful. Once the list is complete, then move it to wherever it needs to go.

I'm pretty sure this is doable in Construct, but editing wouldn't be as easy and events to keep everything in synch (with moving objects and all) would be hell.

Also, there would be VRAM issues, since I imagine any game using this technique would have to stream textures in-game (doubt they you can fit a whole level's textures in VRAM at once).

Yeah, it is doable for lights and stuff. David made an example in the Discussion thread.

As for actual depth sorting on a pixel level using normal or heightmaps, that would require a change in the Construct renderer I believe. Dave and Ash said they were thinking about doing this for C2 iirc.