digitalsoapbox's Forum Posts

  • I'd really like to see a WebGL effect for rim-lights. A simple additive light from set angle and with freedom to set RGB colors and the effect's radius. Do those terms even make sense?

    I second this one. Though would prefer screen over additive blending, which can get a bit extra-glowly. When I'm slapping rimlight on stuff in post for my day job (animation stuff), screen blending always ends up being the way to go.

  • BluePhaze Well, if he's hitting a web-based database, that's not necessarily a bad thing. C2 makes accessing things like a WP database/SQL, or even a WP feed, pretty easy to deal with compared to more common alternatives.

    Djordhan There's no reason C2 couldn't do this, though keep in mind you're going to have to figure out how to parse that data. Is it a web-based or local database? And what database format?

  • If you're using the platform behavior, all of that functionality is built-in:

    https://www.scirra.com/manual/100/platform

  • fremachuca

    DatapawWolf

    I'm looking on their site now and it looks like that per-month subscription service was time-limited, because I don't see it as an option any more either. I'd be surprised if they didn't bring it back, though - they said the same thing about any type of subscription service when the monthly payments were first announced and now that's what they're pushing.

    Maybe the terms have changed since the subscription now includes free upgrades to Unity 5 when it's released? I'll email my support contact and let you guys know what I find out. Even w/ a 12 month subscription it's still a great deal, what with the free upgrades and being around $700 less than an outright purchase of Unity 4.x (which I don't think includes the free upgrade to 5, but I could be wrong). I know that right now my year subscription to their initial 12 month subscription offer is going month-to-month as it's been more than a year and they haven't asked me to commit to any specific length of time since its expiration months ago.

  • > This pricing isn't really accurate, as you can also sign up for Unity's subscription service, which now has no set time limit on how long you have to sign up for. So, you could create your entire project in Unity, for free, and only sign up for the subscription to push it out to platforms outside of OSX/Windows/Linux. I've easily saved thousands of dollars using their subscription service instead of buying each major release outright, as was required previously.

    >

    So that means implementing Pro's features last-minute then, huh? Because Pro has some really nice stuff packed in that Free lacks. I guess it's not a big deal if you already know what you're dealing with but of the Indie devs I know, they'd rather outright save up for Pro and not have to worry about the rest.

    You can keep the monthly account for as long as you'd like, and given Unity's recent upgrade cycle length is more bang for your buck than purchasing outright.

    As for missing Pro features: other than internet multiplayer/networking they're almost entirely graphical, so even if that means you're paying $75/mo for, say, 3-6mo to add those graphical features you're still saving a ton of cash to put towards another part of the development process - mobile licenses, for example. I can't really comment on how long it would take to add the networking stuff in, and I can't say I've seen a ton of Unity (or Unreal tech in terms of indie dev) that really use it anyway.

    I've been using Unity since the first versions on Windows (2.x somethingorother) and their current monthly pricing plan is by far the best deal I've seen in terms of providing access to powerful game (and other) development tools at a more indie-friendly cost. And what with the company's general responsiveness to their community - far more than Epic/Unreal's actual day-to-day engagement - if someone were looking to make a 3D game, Unity would be my first recommendation.

    For 2D, I'll still push C2 over Unity2D any day. With Scirra's very supportive, mostly friendly and knowledgeable community it's a total no-brainer, not to mention the awesome and personal support their team provides.

  • Hmm i'm more interested in your tools, like the one you use for map creator (.tmx extension) and the other one Spriter Pro, i'm gonna try it, thank you for pointing it out dude

    i'm a new comer. huehue

    .TMX = Tiled Map Editor: mapeditor.org

    Spriter Pro: brashmonkey.com, pretty sure that's lucid 's jam.

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  • I was wondering how you do that highlight effect around the bags of money--is that a webgl effect or is it individual frame-by-frame sprites or something else?

    It's a particle system that gets blurred, has a threshold effect applied and is then outlined w/ WebGL shaders, yes. I suppose a simple version could be done w/ a looping frame-by-frame animation for those platforms missing WebGL support, but since I've no plans to port Sombrero to mobile devices that don't support WebGL - really just Apple's crap devices at this point, everything else seems to handle it just fine - I suspect I'll be keeping it WebGL shader-based.

  • Unity 3d Free is different story so you can't compare it to UE

    >

    > See tulamide example above, but that is too little money for 2 years worth of work. So in order to justify 2 years work you need to make at least $100,000

    > That means...

    > Epic gets $5000 + $456

    > vs

    > $1800 from unity 3d (2 years at $75) and that is if you need the pro features.

    >

    For serious games you will need Unity Pro version (quite funny note from unity www "free version is not intended for the production of professional games and interactive content")

    1800$ vs 456$ - for pc, mac

    5400$ vs 456$ - for pc, mac, android, ios

    And some more news:

    "Crytek has revealed that from May this year, indie developers will be able to use all of CRYENGINE's cutting-edge features for a monthly subscription fee of 9.90 USD/EUR per user - royalty free."

    This pricing isn't really accurate, as you can also sign up for Unity's subscription service, which now has no set time limit on how long you have to sign up for. So, you could create your entire project in Unity, for free, and only sign up for the subscription to push it out to platforms outside of OSX/Windows/Linux. I've easily saved thousands of dollars using their subscription service instead of buying each major release outright, as was required previously.

  • You can just resize the larger images. Is there a specific reason you need thumbnails?

  • Fwumpy

    Power of 2 is still a thing, yes. It's less to do with visual quality and more to do with efficiently using available device memory based on the way GPUs process data. Images don't have to be square, so your 150x50 example would fit into 256x128 instead of 256x256. This will get done by the GPU itself, so you don't have to manually resize the image to 256x128, just be aware that a 150x50 image will have the same memory requirements as an image that's 256x128.

    Unless you're doing a hugely complex game with hundreds of unique animations, though, it's not something worth concerning yourself with. Mobile devices are pretty speedy these days.

  • Supporting Multiple Screen Sizes:

    https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/73/sup ... reen-sizes

  • digitalsoapbox,

    To answer your questions:

    1. This plugin allows the sprite font to be displayed correctly in the editor, as described in the first post. That is the only real benefit to using this over the native one that I can see and was the reason why I started to use it. I know that the array/JSON technique works just fine - as per the tutorials etc - I don't really understand why you asked the question and think you maybe missed the point of the plugin...?

    2. It's not the end of the world for me, but it would have been if I had spent the last 3 months using this plugin throughout my project.... My point about 3rd party plugin support is about my concern that a critical plugin might get broken by a C2 update. If you've spent months on a project and then it's trashed by scirra's lack of support of these plugins - well, that's not a good thing! I am not saying that spritefont+ is necessarily one of these plugins, but this is just an example of the risk anyone takes by using a 3rd party plugin with C2. Of course multiplayer is going to be great...

    1. I handle all text dynamically so I never see it in the editor anyway; that difference doesn't really affect in-game functionality so it's not something I'd considered - and that's why I asked the question .

    2. I get what you're saying, and understand your frustration, but it's not really Scirra's job to make sure all 3rd-party plugins don't break. The same as it's not Unity/Epic/Adobe/Autodesk/etc.'s job to do the same w/ third-party plugins for their software. Again, I'd rather see them improve/support their own software than worry too much about those improvements breaking plugins created & supported by other developers.

    It's just part of software development, regardless of the tools involved. And as you said, it's always a risk when using 3rd party plugins. I'm not especially thrilled when Adobe does an update that breaks my (paid, very expensive) After Effects plugins for my day job - and that happens a whole lot more than it does with C2 - but the companies who make them typically come out with an update shortly after. Luckily, there's nothing stopping me from continuing to use the old version of the Adobe software - or any of us from using a slightly older version of C2, considering 164 is a beta release anyway - until those updates are made.

    TL;DR: It's better to be thrilled that such flexible, low-cost software exists and can be easily extended to make our lives easier. The occasional cost of using 3rd-party tools for increased functionality and productivity isn't limited to C2 and the benefits outweigh the downsides considerably.

  • +1 for making this the default way of handling sprite font.

    Also, r164 has completely broken this plugin - if I preview a game that doesn't even use it I receive a host of javascript failure messages (removing the plugin and it runs fine) .

    And I would just like to add that this breaking of perfectly excellent plugins is the reason why these features should be incorporated into the main program instead of being left to 3rd party developers to sort out. Thread drifting rant over... Happy now....

    Two things:

    1 - Is there any specific reason you're using this plugin past custom character widths? Because the method described in the first post works just fine for standard C2 sprite fonts w/ variable character widths.

    2 - 3rd-party plugin supports exists for a reason; expecting a small team like Scirra to add every feature everyone asks for is unrealistic. And I dunno about you, but adding multiplayer support certainly seems like a more pressing matter - and a more important feature to more people - that making sprite fonts easier to use than they already are...and they're already pretty easy to use.

  • Nevermind, got it sorted. For anyone else who runs into the content: encoded issue: just use replace when parsing the xml to replace "content:encoded" with "content" and all works as expected.

  • Great stuff, Pode! Is there any way to enable the ability to load a full style sheet? As it works now, defining multiple classes (h2, p, etc.) seems to totally break css loading.