Hi again.

So, my little project is coming along nicely, the foundations are in place for my top down adventure/action game. Just a few things that have been bothering me lately quite a bit:

I was thinking of trying to implement some kind of field of view- cone for my player character. I tried the shadow- method ive seen around here and it actually works just fine. the problem is, id like to have some destructible walls in my project and thats where im having issues. is it at all possible to update the shadowcaster's shadow collision mask when running the project?

Because of this, i started thinking of different ways to implement the "view cone". I was thinking of erase effect on many objects that are fired out in the form of a cone, which would be destroyed when they collide with solid (to explain roughly). Problem here is that the object/instance count would take a big hit. Now, i ask: has anyone managed to make a dynamic field of view that isnt too demanding but still rather effective?

As a bonus question, regarding the blurmask effect:

Is there any possible ways to make the object that has the blurmask effect have a blurred edge? Because now it seems that the effect only has sharp, clear cut edges and doesnt recognize alpha, which is kind of ironic. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

So, heres all i had really. Sorry for the wall of text, just wanted to explain everything as well as i could.

I would really be happy if anyone can offer some insight on these issues, thanks.

you just told me everything i wanted/needed to hear, so thanks much!

now i can rest easy and continue. aint too afraid about the unstable editor. game is still going to be rather "small" even if its gonna have somewhat large levels.

i was also thinking about making randomized levels to avoid bloating the editor, but that kind of defeats the purpose of this game in question. we'll see...

now im off to construct, thanks!

hi all.

been toying with construct classic for a year now. made a few small simple games and decided to try something more ambitious.

im toying with the idea of making a top down shooter/adventure with somewhat large open levels. im going to use pretty low res pixel art, so to start, i think i havent much worry with the vram, but one thing thats worrying me though, is the object count on any level im going to make. with all the environment art, trees, river, enemies roaming around, structures, vehicles, im pretty scared that im going to end up with a bloated levels and performance issues.

simple question is:

how many objects is too much, basically?

just trying to get some perspective here, since i have a pretty powerful desktop pc, so its hard to tell if im going to make the game too demanding.

for example, is 3000 objects(not all unique) on a layout too ambitious?

or is that just pretty much normal figure for a level of any kind?

(i really dont know since all my games have been really simple with mostly levels being one screen in size)

ive done some tests with just spraying layout full of instances of a sprite, but its kinda hard to tell, since the editor itself starts to slow down, especially when you select a crapload of instances at once.ive had crashes before when doing that. im probably going to use as much of tiled backgrounds as i can, but still, could i get some advices about how to start making bigger maps? just some kind of numbers would serve as precious guidelines to start compiling the levels.

anyway, sorry if im not being too specific with this. its just that im on the verge of starting something rather time consuming, and unsure if im going to end up in a dead end with this,so i need to plan carefully with the performance in mind.

also to note, im not exactly aiming to make it for the low end laptops or pcs, but still, i dont want it to be resource hog like crysis either <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" />