I'm back into hobby eletronics lately and was wondering if there's any way to control the parallel port using Construct.

Although it's considered obsolete for most people, the parallel port is still quite popular among CNC hobbyists and DIYers.

So, is there any parallel port plugin for CC? Or perhaps is it achievable through python?

I once used an LPT extension on MMF1.5 and was able to control it, but MMF events were to slow to do anything useful. CC on the other hand seems to be an ideal platform for my projects.

I think that would be more intuitive if the local variable declarations were actions and not something similar to events. It is probably harder for non coders to understand as it's not so consistent with the condition>>action system. In fact I think it would be even more intuitive if local variables don't need to be declared at all. They should be automatically declared when you add, set or substract a local variable. This would probably make things simpler.

That's a problem I was trying to improve in my c2 interface proposal. If it was possible to pan an zoom the events' window with middle mouse button and scroll wheel, the events could be more readable in a single line and construct could have a faster workflow. That would be one of the biggest benefits of using an openGL drawn interface like blender's.

I have a quick mockup based on some studies I made on the event editor.

<img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/c2-interface-02-thumb.png">

full image: http://www.prr-art.com/things/c2-interface-02.png

I used a mockup of another window as the base so the side panels and some menus don't necessarily have relevant content for the event editor, but is possible to have an idea of some of the features that could help improve the general usability, like color marked events, quick event/condition/expression toggle, cleaner look, visual clues for "add conditions/...", etc.

Imagine those big eventsheets where you could zoom out to see the whole thing and easily identify the blocks of code by color, then move to the desired place and zoom in again, but just the amount that's enough to fit the area that you want to work on while still having a good redability. Combining this with acessible pan functions, the screen size would not be a problem anymore.

With the release of construct classic by members of the community maybe I can still propose some improvements that still apply to the old interface.

My graphics card is a GeForce 9400 GT with 512 mb of ram, running under windows 7 32 bits.

Since I posted this a month ago inside another topic and didn't get any replies, I'm making this a topic to see if someone can give me some feedback.

I found out that if I try to load an image in the picture editor, that is bigger than my system's/monitor's resolution, it simply won't load. The same way if I resize the picture editor's canvas to a size bigger than my system's/monitor's resolution, the canvas immediately gets cleared. I'm using 1024x768, so if I try to load or make the canvas something like 200x769 (1 pixel taller than my resolution) everything gets cleared. The same happens for the width.

I changed my system's resolution to 1152x864, and was able to load bigger images (1152x864 max size). However when I changed my resolution back to 1024x768 construct crashed.

Is this happening to someone else?

*Normally I could split the image into several objects, but since I'm trying to load a big texture for a mesh object, I'm not able to do it.

Just made some edit's on your cap (improved some details), hope you don't mind:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7871870/construct/3dtunneleffect-2.cap

I found out that if I try to load an image in the picture editor, that is bigger than my system's/monitor's resolution, it simply won't load. The same way if I resize the picture editor's canvas to a size bigger than my system's/monitor's resolution, the canvas immediately gets cleared. I'm using 1024x768, so if I try to load or make the canvas something like 200x769 everything gets cleared.

I changed my system's resolution to a bigger one, and was able to load bigger images. However when I changed my resolution back to 1024x768 construct crashed.

Is this happening to someone else?

We plan for the exporters to be open-source though - this should make it very easy for open-source devs to improve the runtime, or write an exporter for a platform of their choice (e.g. Linux), without impacting us. So parts of C2 will still be open source!

Yeah, but that also means that anything that will be expanded open-sourcewise will be bounded and limited by the architecture and features that the developers choose to implement, and any request of support for new ideas will depend on their will. This defeats most of the benefits of open-source and limit alot the possibilities to introduce new ideas to reach the goal of making a game-maker that really stands out.

But as I am seeing you already have your minds well defined, so exposing my arguments will probably be pointless. Thanks for the attention anyway.

(off)@Mipey - Blender's interface may seem a bit strange to some, but believe me, after you get it going you'll be impressed at how fast you can perform your work, and after using it you will lack most of it's concepts in other apps. Luckly they improved alot the new 2.5 interface for newcomers while still maintaining the main features.

Is it fair for you to ask Ash to work part time on it, so you can avoid paying the price of the license?

Just taking the hook...

I really don't mind paying for construct. What bugs me is that it's no longer going to be an opensource software. I was willing to contribute with all my designer abilities to make a great game-maker. And that's the greatest point of opensource that construct is starting to loose.

I was designing a new interface for construct 2 (since c2 was just an idea) and not just in appearance but in functionality and usability too.

<img src="http://www.prr-art.com/things/c2-interface.jpg">

Now my efforts are all in vain, and I'm being pushed into looking at another opensource software simmilar to construct that I can contribute to.

As I follow the Blender community, every day I got more and more impressed at how well it work, and I really wish construct community could be the same way.

Some people have said that construct could never be like Blender because there's not so much people that contribute to it like in other opensource softwares. What I think was the main problem with C0.x, was that not much people know that construct existed in the first place. Most of the people that I know, started using construct because of some randomly friends' indication. My point is, C0.x not worked as an opensource because there was no proper marketing. There were some initiatives to make some exposing, but those never took off. I strongly believe that fixing those problems would bring a lot more contributors.

In my opinion, the closed-source exporters proposal with donations could work with proper marketing, and is the best presented model so far as it benefits from the opensource advantages.

In resume: no problem at all in paying, but please, please put some effort into thinking some models' alternatives to keep the editor opensource, as I think this is the best way to make a great game-maker, and also make construct stand out from competition. It will be a big lost otherwise.

*sorry if I'm being too off-topic

Hei Santo!

It's me Paulo "Pixel".

I played the new beta today, and I must say that Talbot's Odyssey is a great and fun game.

As it is, I have no major critics. I think it's polished enough as a beta game.

The only minor thing that I have to say, that had already been pointed out, is that the characters in pixelart doesn't seem to work very well with the painted background. The problem I think is not about using pixelart itself, but some contour jaggies that stand out too much against the smooth background. Those should be smoothed out using anti-aliasing and/or semi transparent pixels on the borders. Although I think the characters could still benefit from being redrawn in vector or even painted in the same way as the background, as both mediums naturally tend to give smoother results.

Anyway, keep up the nice work guys!

I hope to see more levels and features in the future...

helps partially. I can now compare the alpha but I cannot set a pixel's alpha.

Actually I made some tests and it seems that with a canvas object I cannot set the pixel's alpha value anymore. If I set it's alpha to 0 it always stays opaque instead of turn transparent.

But if I apply the effect to a layer it turn the pixel transparent as expected.

here the example (construct version 0.99.84):

http://www.prr-art.com/things/shader_test-01.cap

http://www.prr-art.com/things/sand.fx

let me explain first:

the shader I'm working was designed to be applied to a layer, not individual objects. In the shader's code i have an IF that checks the alpha of the layer's pixel.

If I use a canvas, it seems to grab the entire layout as an image, that means that I can't check for alpha anymore.