Happy to help!

(I'm wondering if setting 0 to the NoiseMask is equal to no CPU use for that 'empty' shader?)

On that I have no idea, but I suspect the CPU use doesn't change. That's why I use Noise for this, because I assume it doesn't take much to begin with.

In some cases you can get around that. Like if the effects you want to use don't work as masks but you need them to, you can sort of piggyback them on an effect that that does so it applies to everything underneath it.

So here I have a single empty layer on top. It has a noise mask with it's intensity set to 0 because all I want is it's mask property, and the other two effects ordered under it so they process last on top of the mask. As you can see, the warp effect gets applied to everything.

It's not the most efficient solution but I hope you can adapt that to your needs. If it'll work you also have the added benefit of being able to apply your shader underneath any UI elements if you want so they remain un-obscured.

Perhaps you could take advantage of global layers? You'll need to add an empty layer named "Shader" or something to every layout. Then in one layout, (maybe a test room if you have one,) set that layer to global and add all the effects you need. Then it should be automatically mirrored to every layer with that name throughout the entire project. That way you only need to set it up once and any changes you make later won't need to be repeated.

Happy Halloween!

I made a few alternate sprites for Reliquary that'll show up whenever the player's system date is October 31st.

My current project, Reliquary, has 1283 events right now. That's for player control, level system, AI for 8 enemies and two boss fights, environmental interactions, and procedural generation for two different biomes. I think it'll at least triple by the time I hit the 1.0 release.

Here's a look at that boss in motion.

Tinimations

Thanks! I'm really liking how your stuff is looking too.

My favorite part of working on Reliquary is making boss fights now. This is the boss for the second major area.

Would just putting all your animation conditions in an OR block work?

Wrangler Looking good man, seeing new stuff from your game always gets me pumped!

gillenew That looks awesome in motion. Love it.

Anyway, I've just been doing UI stuff for Reliquary's new upgrade system.

Without seeing the .capx or at least a screenshot of your code there isn't really any way for us to figure out where your imagepoint issue is coming from. For the Z order issue, it sounds like you're setting the order in the layout rather than when the bullet is created, because all objects are created on top by default. Your event for creating it should also set the order you want. Bullet / Move to Object / Player and set it to behind. If you're already doing that and it still isn't working, try doing it every tick instead of on created.

Did you erase the top edge of your background mountains, or the bottom? If that line is the bottom edge of the image starting again, leaving a gap at the top won't help.

Gougth

Thanks so much for following up on the bug. I can reproduce it consistently now. It seems like there are other errors that go hand in hand with it too, like prop shadows spawning with props that don't use them. That floating enemy may be related too. It must be some weird interaction between the save system and the level generation, but I don't know what it could be yet.

And yeah, I use photoshop. People keep telling me to switch to Graphics Gale because that's actually made specifically for pixel animation, but I can't get used to the interface.

Beaverlicious

Thanks!

kraed

I'll be adding controller support and custom keybinds eventually, but it's really good to hear my defaults work well for others!

To answer your question, pretty much any stage that isn't the home base or a boss arena is generated when you arrive there. Because my assets are all fairly low resolution I can get away with having lots of sprites that are very large relative to the player without costing much memory, so each island is a single sprite. (I like to avoid tiling as much as possible for a more natural look.)

Generation starts with a loose template, which is just a sprite with a path roughed out in image points (the red squares), scaled up to the size of the level. Large islands are then placed at each image point. Then I do a second pass with smaller islands. Now the smaller islands are just sitting on top of the larger ones and it looks awful, so I have them set up to move away from each other if they're overlapping. Once they've sorted themselves out I do a third pass, this time without the template, instead spawning at the locations of random existing islands, and they push themselves around to fit again.

Then it's time for props. Rocks, large plantlife and other stuff get distributed across the islands, with preference going to large islands so they don't look too empty. Then small plants are distributed , with every third one being placed near an existing one, so they appear to propagate in patches.

Finally monsters are spawned, and each type has it's own conditions for that. Things like hives needing to be on a large island, and nobody can spawn too close to the player's starting island.

I hope that made sense and wasn't too long-winded!