Thanks. :D

I just recently created a post for an effect suite I'm working on for Construct Classic. I set up the download to use Dropbox, as I wasn't sure if it was okay for a poster to link to their own website. So I wanted to ask first.

Is it alright for a poster to link to their own site?

(e.g. In my case link to a page containing documentation for the effect suite I'm releasing.)

Does it make a difference if the site can accept donations, via donation button or something?

(My site doesn't have any donation system at the moment, but I'm still in the process of assembling the site, and I hope to include something like that eventually.)

I know I've seen a few other posters link to their sites, but I just wanted to make sure those weren't special cases or something.

Sorry if this is an odd question. I try to err on the side of caution where forum etiquette is concerned. :)

Thanks everyone. :D

Definitely let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. I'm all ears.

Also, there are descriptions of all the effect parameters available as well. I just added a new "Effect Instructions" section to my top post describing where you can find these descriptions.

(I'm also including that new section below for convenience.)

<font color=blue>Effect Instructions:</font>

I'll be releasing more detailed instructions in the future, but for now, each effect has some built-in documentation which should help out.

Effect Descriptions:

When adding a new effect from the effect list, the description of the selected effect can be seen in a gray box at the bottom of the effect list window. If a description doesn't quite fit in the box, then you can always stretch the window wider to read all of it.

Effect Parameter Descriptions:

When you add an effect to an object, and edit the effect parameters in the Property panel, clicking on one of the parameters to edit it's value causes a gray box at the very bottom of the Property panel to show a description of that parameter. I've tried to make the parameter descriptions pretty helpful. They will often explain what the parameter does, what to expect from specific example values, and the valid range (e.g. 0.0 to 1.0) and type (integer or decimal) of values.

For parameters that are integer menus, (e.g. 0 = off, and 1 = on.), the parameter descriptions will list the available menu options, and their effects.

e.g.

[0] = Normal blend.   [1] = Add blend.   [2] = Multiply blend.

Okay, here is the alpha release of the effect suite I'm working on.

Feedback is very much welcome, as are any questions.

I'll be releasing effect demos, in both .cap and .exe form, for the other effects soon.

<font color="blue">Download:</font>

Fisholith Effects - alpha 1 - 111111.zip

(The "111111" is the date.)

<font color="blue">Effect Demos (compiled):</font>

Download - Bias Gain demo app

(more to come)

<font color="blue">Installation:</font>

Unzip the ".fx" files and place them in the following folder, (depending on your OS).

XP: C:\Program Files\Scirra\Construct Classic\Effects

Vista & 7 x64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Scirra\Construct Classic\Effects

<font color="blue">Effect naming:</font>

"!fi -"

For the alpha releases, all effect names start with "!fi -". This is because when I work on them, it's much easier to have them sort to the top, and stay in a group. I hope this isn't too inconvenient for anyone for the time being.

"RGB"

Effects with names ending in RGB give individual control over the Red, Green, and Blue channels.

<font color="blue">Effect Instructions:</font>

I'll be releasing more detailed instructions in the future, but for now, each effect has some built-in documentation which should help out.

Effect Descriptions:

When adding a new effect from the effect list, the description of the selected effect can be seen in a gray box at the bottom of the effect list window. If a description doesn't quite fit in the box, then you can always stretch the window wider to read all of it.

Effect Parameter Descriptions:

When you add an effect to an object, and edit the effect parameters in the Property panel, clicking on one of the parameters to edit it's value causes a gray box at the very bottom of the Property panel to show a description of that parameter. I've tried to make the parameter descriptions pretty helpful. They will often explain what the parameter does, what to expect from specific example values, and the valid range (e.g. 0.0 to 1.0) and type (integer or decimal) of values.

For parameters that are integer menus, (e.g. 0 = off, and 1 = on.), the parameter descriptions will list the available menu options, and their effects.

e.g.

[0] = Normal blend.   [1] = Add blend.   [2] = Multiply blend.

<font color="blue">Effect List:</font>

Additive Bidirectional RGB

Additive Bidirectional

Bias Gain

Bias RGB

Bias

Bit Crusher RGB

Channel Invert

Channel Reassignment

Channel Select RGBA for BG

Channel Select RGBA

Channel Wrench

Compose RGBA Tiles Stretch

Compose RGBA Tiles

Dither Map Bit Crusher RGB

Dither Map Gen 8x8

Dither Map Posterize RGB

Elevation Gradient Chromatic

Elevation Gradient

Gain

Global Variable Texture Viewer

Grayscale to Opacity Gamma Aware

Grayscale to Opacity

Pixel Noise

Posterize RGB f3

Posterize RGB

RGB2HLS

Scan Line Tool

Solarize RGB

Solarize

Threshold RGB

Threshold Soft Color

Threshold Soft

Threshold

Use Background via Alpha Mask

Use Background via Bounding Box Mask

I would definitely be interested in helping to add to Construct. :)

Thanks Angelo.

I'm nearing completion of the first release. I was hoping to have the alpha out last Thursday, but I had to put working on it on hold for a few days. I'm hoping to have it available by this Friday, or sooner if I'm able.

Thanks again guys. :)

Let me know if you have any requests by the way, with respect to effects or demos. I don't know If I'll have time to implement them in the first release, but any feedback helps.

<font color="purple">EDIT:

Still hoping to get it released this Friday (technically today). I've gotten quite a bit more done, so with any luck I'll have it ready shortly.</font>

<font color="blue">EDIT 2:

Alpha version 1.0 is now available :)

</font>

Thanks Noga.

I'm hoping to get the alpha release done sometime within the next week. Ideally in the next few days. Anyway, I appreciate the feedback. It always helps to know there's interest out there. :)

Hi everyone,

I'm planning on building and releasing a suite of Construct Effects (Shaders) over the next little while.

I still have a fair bit of work to go, but with luck I'll be releasing an alpha version of the set shortly. At this point, I mainly need to finish off a few more Effects, and then fill in the documentation for the parameters and such.

Presently I have a little over 20, Effects, ranging from tone manipulations like soft threshold, bias, and gain, to more special case effects like a fairly flexible scan line generator.

Once the first version is released, if anyone is interested in testing out the effects in that alpha version and giving me feedback on things I might need to fix and the like, any such help would be much appreciated. :)

Anyway, I'm hoping to release the first alpha-ish version of the actual .fx files in the next few days. I also want to put together some interactive visual demos of the Effects, but I'll probably start doing most of that after the first alpha release.

I did build a demo for the "Bias Gain" Effect, just to kind of rough out the style I'll probably use for the other demos. You can get a copy of the compiled demo from the link below, to get an idea of the kind of stuff I'm working towards. If you have time, let me know what you think. :)

Download - Bias Gain demo app

(I'm interested in making the demo apps resizable eventually, but the prototype at the link above has a fixed size of 1024x768.)

Thanks guys. I worked out a system that handles a simplified case of what I'm going for. It will link instances of a single object together in chains or bunches (trees).

Download example cap here.

I'm still interested in getting it to work for an arbitrary number of collisions on a single tick.

(...also, I just got a dropbox account.)

I appreciate the reply, and the example.

I may ultimately have to resort to using multiple objects, but what I'm looking for at the moment is a way to form links between multiple instances of a single object. That is, rather than having 5 instances of "ball" and 5 instances of "ball2", I'm looking to have 10 instances just of "ball", where any of those instances can stick to each other.

I'm thinking I may need to employ some Python scripting to store selected instances in variables and or distinguish between individual instances in the Selected Object List. Awesome as Python is, in this case I'd prefer to avoid it if possible.

If I have a bunch of instances of an object, with the physics behavior, (such as a bunch of marbles), is there any way that I can form a hinge between two instances that are colliding? This would, in theory, make these instances stick together. And, as more and more collided with each other, they'd start sticking together in chains or bunches.

The problem I have is that,

1: I'm not sure how to differentiate between objects in a collision, such that I can ask only one of them to form a hinge to the other, and

2: since a collision is not a triggered event, but rather the collision condition is tested for on each tick, on a single tick I may have several (e.g. 20) instances colliding.

Is there any simple way to get the kind of behavior I'm describing, or would it really require a triggered event style collision detection?

I would recommend looking into Python.

It depends on what you're doing, but if I understand what you're going for, you might have the most flexibility in the long run just using simple Python data structures (e.g. lists). They can easily be converted to text, which in turn can be converted back into data structures, so testing and visualizing the contents of something like an inventory would be easy even before a front end viewer is implemented. Likewise editing the inventory for testing purposes could be done by editing human readable text.

I had put off using python in Construct for quite a while, and in retrospect I should have started in with it much earlier. It turns out it's much easier to use than I had anticipated.

Tutorial: A very simple Python-in-Construct intro tutorial on the forums.

Scirra Wiki: The Construct Wiki page on Python:

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/c ... _Scripting

Reference: A pretty good reference and documentation site for Python:

http://docs.python.org/tutorial/index.html

The above site might be a good place to start learning python if you're not already familiar with it, (but wait till after doing the tutorial at the first link I provided).

Anyway, if you decide that you want to try using Python I recommend using the reference site above to read a little about the basics, like syntax, operators, if/then/else, loops, and functions, and then just start building stuff. And when you need to know more, look it up on a case by case basis.

In your case, you'll probably be using lists and dictionaries.

One bit of advice though, is that you'll want to write down in one place the names of all global variables and functions you've created, so you don't have to go hunt them down to remember what they were named.

And if you've never done traditional text-based programming before, don't worry. If you can use Construct, then you can use Python in Construct.