tunepunk's Forum Posts

    Performance wise I can't complain at all. Just recently I started to redo all my in game graphics using the Q3D plugin. As a benchmark, to see what I could expect from 3d performance on a old midrange phone I downloaded a couple of "Made with Unity" games in 3d.. They seemed to perform fairly well. I didn't have any fps counter. It was playable but definitely not any 60fps. It felt like around 25-30 fps.

    I built a quick map with mockups, characters with animations and effects some simple game at a similar complexity (geometry, animations, shaders, lights etc. of what I was seeing in the games I tested. I was quite surprised that I was getting around same performance. Around 30fps-50fps even with real time shadows on for characters and moving objects.(which some of the game i tested did not have, without realtime shadows i was getting 40-55fps) Environment shadows was baked, which is pretty common practice. The only thing my test was missing was some proper game mechanics, but there was room for optimization to many of my poly models texture sizes etc.

    I did this test to verify weather I should continue down the Real time 3d path with my game or stick with isometric. My conclusion was that for a slightly lower fps than isometric i got a real time 3d game, and not having to worry that much about memory budget, advanced calculations for angles arrow arches and ricochets in isometric etc. and rendering hundreds upon hundreds of character animation frames in various directions.

    I didn't try building it though but from previous tests I've always been getting about the same fps after building compared to the normal phone browser.

    I can't complain at all, If I can build a 3d game at similar complexity to a Unity game with pretty similar performance. I'd choose C2 any day of the week. Unity still don't have the event sheet. I will share tutorial/capx on that later and good practices for mobile 3d games.

  • Try FTPBox, works like dropbox but your ftp is the cloud. I'm using it and love it. I export directly to there to test projects. And you can share images like old days Dropbox. It generates links for u too for easy share.

    Ashley is there any technical limitations not allowing us to use the C3 build service for C2 projects. In an ideal world you would just upload your c2 export in zip file and building with the c3 build service. Until C3 matured and most major plugins has become available to c3.

    Can we get a package of features and working exporters for the existing C2 engine at a reasonable price with no subscription Ashley?

    Ahhh .......I get where you're going with that...... I wouldn't mind that either, as I will be stuck in a bit of a limbo for a while...

    I'm in this situation now:

    In order to move my project to completely to C3 I'm relying on several plugins, that needs to be ported to C3, before I can do that. I don't know when or if those plugins will ever become available for C3, so I'm pretty much counting on that I have to stick with C2, for a while longer, (at least for some of my c2 projects). Although... We still have the 3rd party wrappers, but it would be good if C2 had access to a better build service as well, at least until (those who wish) can completely move their projects to C3. I don't mind if that would be subscription based, or pay for a pack of X Number of build outputs (in case you can't provide a downloadable build pack for a one time pay)

    lamar

    I didn't ask for that specifically, because I didn't even know it was possible, or that they even had that plan in mind. But since I've tried the beta, i'm quite optimistic.... It looks great, feels great, and I can even make games on my phone while having a dump.

    I can just speak for myself. The only thing i can remember I requested was 3D support, and not having to rely on 3rd party build options for mobile. Apparently they provided 50% of my needs so far, and they have no interest whatsoever adding 3D support.... but I'm not complaining. That it's browser based is just a bonus for me. I find it pretty cool.... Unusual, but I kind of like it.... so far.... I will still be using C2 for my main project, but will be playing with C3 as I go.

    Subscription model or not... I could care less. Game development is still pretty cheap hobby of mine. I have several subscriptions running just to make my project a reality. Photoshop, Autodesk Sketchbook, Maya... hell ... even my gym card costs 250Euro for 6 month membership, and I don't even like going there, but I still pay for it, because it's good for me. >_< ... LOL

    I'm not speaking for everyone, ONLY myself. As everyone has their own needs and request, but I put my trust in that they know what they are doing, and so far I'm still optimistic, especially if I will see my favorite plugins ported to C3.

    I just feel there's way too much negativity before we even got our hands on the complete product.... even when first stable is released, it's still gonna have some problems, or lacking some features until the product matures. I think we would have to deal with that even if they went for a pure desktop version.

    lamar LOL, it's not a big conspiracy theory you just uncovered. It's basic business 101 ...

    They have service costs, staff costs, rent, support costs, server costs, etc.... to me subscription makes sense, given that they chose to do C3 online.

    Even if they didn't go for an online approach they would still have to figure out a way to earn money on a regular basis in order not to go bankrupt. Apparently pay once for lifetime updates, bug fixes, features, is pretty hard to upkeep.

    You're a developer? You should know that? If you sell a game for a one time fee you can't just rely on that one sale your entire life and keep supporting your product... There is a point where your customers cost has exceeded the income. Then you need to plan for your next release, and your next and your next, in order to get a steady income to support your business if you're going for a pay once approach.

    There's a lot of developers here that are trying to monetize their product in one way or another. Some choose ads, Some chose IAP, some choose pay once.

    From what i've researched for my own projects.

    * If you release a short game where a player usually only spends a few hours then done with it - Pay once is a very good option. You're only gonna get a few cent from ads per play/customer.

    * If you release a game that you are maintaining and constantly updating with new levels and content, or a game with a lot of replayability - ad based is very good option, it provides a steady flow of income.

    * If you want to keep it "free", but don't want to rely on ads, you have to create some ingame desire to buy more content. - IAP is a good option.

    C2's approach with one time fee, can work if they constantly get new developers buying licences all the time, and plan on regular payed version upgrades, like photoshop in the past. Photoshop CS4, CS5, CS6. But they dropped that, since it's pretty hard to maintain several products for old time users still sticking with old software, it probably costs a lot to support old software.

    I have some old software I payed licences for in the past. They are not even supported anymore, or some companies don't even exist anymore. I bet they don't even run on a modern computer. It was for windows 95/98. I still own the software but it's pretty useless to me now.

    C3's leaves out the one time fee option pretty much, unless they start selling new features similar to how IAP works, or already have C4 and C5 in the pipeline.

    It's no conspiracy theory to lure people into a subscription model, it's just basic business 101. It's the approach they chose to be able to continue to develop their product.

    They chose to make an online dev tool, with running costs, and subscription makes sense. To me at least... Even if I skipped Business Economics class in school.

  • Just wanted to post a little update on how it's going, moving the game over from 2D to 3D using Q3D. So far so good.

    Import models - Works flawlessly, although i have to otimize much of my art to low poly version.

    Apply textures/Change textures - No problem here. Pretty easy to do.

    Movement/Rotation - Working well with touch input.

    Height position based on terrain. - Using raycaster on the character pointing downwards so i can have complex terrain.

    Arrow physics (ray based or collision based) - So far seems to be working well but I'm going to try raycaster on the arrow, to stick on geometry rather than colission boxes.

    Collisions(Movement) - Still working on this - as I might have the entire map as one model imported.

    Multiple animations per character. I had a bit of trouble with this at first but managed to fix it by editing the json file.

    Animation blending. - Worked like a charm

    Pinning - Easy to set objects as child to other objects.

    Exporting baked textures from maya - Takes a bit of work but looks great.

    Building complete map in maya. -The whole map is one object, and Just using collision boxes in the C2 - Still investigating this.

    Mobile Performance test 60fps - Managed to get 30-60 dps on midrange phone. faster with realtime shadows off.

    Seems as things are moving, and it's doable. It's a bit tricky level editing in c2, but I'm trying to do as much as i can in maya.

    I wouldn't go that for as to say C2 is purely hobbyist platform. Although It is an ideal tool for non-coders designer type devs without a small team or coder to help them take their idea from paper to reality.

    This is the main reason I chose C2. I've always wanted to make my own game, but doing it in my spare time, it's hard to get a team together. C2 allowed me from having a few game ideas in my head and on paper to actually start building them. Yes... C2 might not offer, native, export to consoles, 3D and a couple of other things bigger engines has to offer but one thing it has given me is the ability to make any games at all... pretty easily, without having to struggle with learning how to code.

    Yes exporting to mobile has been kind of a headache with 3rd party tools, but what game development comes without headaches?

    OP is requesting console export, and official ad-network plugins that would benefit his business. I get where he's going with it. He wants to continue using C2, but If he already is at this point in his game developing where he is already making enough money to make a living on his productions, it's not hard to invest in a little bit of dev time, and pay someone to make a plugin for the ad network he is aiming at. The console export is probably the tricky part... I would say XBox One is his first bet to aim at, with Universal windows apps, and it's in the pipeline. Wii U, Switch, Playstation, etc yeah it would be cool if C2 could export to those platforms also, but I don't know how much work it is to get something like that going, given that C2 is a HTML5 engine.

    In my point of view, you either chose an engine that you're comfortable with and has the features that you require, or you chose another engine. I think it's a bit unfair to push all your needs on the small but capable scirra team. If you're targeting consoles... why would you chose C2 in the first place? It's not really made for console productions, although some consoles are starting to accept HTML5 games.

    Yes, Html5 PC, and Mobile wrappers can have their caveats, but it's pretty much something you have to live with if you're using a HTML5 engine. Some can probably be fixed by Scirra, but some issues are probably out of their limits to fix. All the scirra team can do is try to focus on making those exports as painless as possible.

    If you've come to that point where your needs has outgrown the capabilities of the editor you're using, as a serious developer you would naturally start to look at what engines provide the features you need for your business and your ideas. Construct is pretty flexible, in terms of plugins etc. But there's only so much you can do with that...The devs DO listen, and they are active on the forums for direct interaction, and are trying to explain what they can and can not do.

    I will also stick with C2 until the major plugins I'm using has a C3 version. But I will still subscribe to C3 because I find multi platform neat, and to be able to take part during this early stage of development and hopefully get some requests improvements through. Once C3 has matured and most bugs are fixed, I'm pretty sure they will weigh the voices in and add new stuff....

    Ironically,...One thing Scirra has been pretty bad at is Monetizing their product. After so many years, so many customers willing to pay for features they want it boggles me that they are still such a small staff. They need to start working on their shop and stop giving away features for free. They should have one department or at least a few devs dedicated to providing much needed add-ons.... not for free, not included..... but for SALE. C2/C3 is already dirt cheap, compared to other tools, and that's why I think scirra is a bit slow when it comes to feature requests. They seem a bit afraid to charge for stuff, so they can't staff up. I think they underestimate what the user base is willing to pay for certain features. Some might want exporters, platform specific stuff, ray casters, effects, you name it. Like this thread and many others we all want different things, and they are struggling to provide it, and I would say mostly because team size/time.

    My tip to the scirra staff, don't be afraid to charge for your hard work. You'd be amazed how many serious people here willing to pay for features/plugins/behaviours they require. Some of us wants different things but many if us are willing to pay....

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    And no where did I bad mouth the devs.

    I never said you did....., I said ....I wouldn't do that.

    No where on their selling points does it say, "monetize with every major ad network, for every platform".

    I understand you concerns, but I think you're going about it the wrong way. Build a case.. Present numbers to the devs..... we are X amount of mobile devs requesting this feature.

    It's good because.....

    We are willing to pay extra for this feature because....

    If Scirra still doesn't wanna invest their time in this, take your request to the ad network provider. You got build service for mobile coming soon, that's a huge plus if it works well.

    Yes, some of the wording on their site maybe over selling some of the features and functionality, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out. I've figured that out even before I decided to buy the product. Technically their wording is a bit deceptive, but I take it you've published enough games by now to have figured it out as well. But yes, you can pretty much output a html5 export that you can use for multiple platforms. It doesn't mention it can be pretty hard to get it working though.

    I didn't call anyone names personally, it's just as statement that applies almost anything in life. Anyone ranting and blaming someone else for not not providing a few features THEY need in your development is in fact a bit childish. They can't cater for everyone's wishes. They also have their own idea of what construct is and what it's not, and where thier priorities are.

    I want 3D viewport support, but I know that's not the direction they are going, so I'm doing what I can with Q3D trying to learning that instead of Unity. I can try to build a case on why the should focus on it, but I'm not posting rants badmouthing the devs because they don't provide what I need, saying it's backwards to focus on 2D games..... that's so 80's, 3D and especially VR is the new big thing... if scirra don't provide that they are not listening to customers..... see how you sound now?

    In an ideal world, Construct would be an IDE for another engine.

    I don't think it's a stretch to say that the majority of Construct developers use the software for it's event sheet system rather than HTML5.

    Scirra is unmatched with regards to visual coding. It baffles me that none of the bigger players haven't produce anything even close to this; even similar tier future products like GMS2 and Fusion 3 are laughably behind Scirra in this regard.

    Construct is miles ahead of the competition with regards to input, but the output simply doesn't scale and despite technologies being cross-device friendly , quickly falls apart in the real world.

    I trust Scirra, you don't make software this good without knowing what you're doing. HTML5 is the future, AWP and instant apps are proof of the ever shifting progress away from native. I'll stick around for this ride, but I'd love Scirra's thoughts on what's been brought up so far.

    I think you put the nail on the head there, or how they say....

    Input - super easy to create games - output, a nightmare sometimes depending on what platform you target. They have nailed the input, so now they need to nail the output, everything in-between, like plugins and behaviors can pretty much be handled by the community until they sort the output out. So they need to focus on the editor capabilities and export options in my opinion, so you don't end up there with a finished game, but nowhere to publish it.

    Put in regards to plugins etc. Community supplies a lot here.

    I like the way BrashMonkey and Photon Cloud does it for example. They provide their own plugin, and they do it well with great support. Pushing different plugin support over to Scirra's table is not the right way to go, then blaming scirra for not listening to customers. Chase down the ad network instead because they probably have way more money time and developer resources to provide plugins than Scirra has.

    As I'm also mostly interested in mobile, I'm very curious about the build service. If it's hassle free working great, it's a big big step for scirra, and the mobile dev crowd here. But monetization plugins for different kind of ad networks and platforms.... meh.... I don't think that's what scirra should focus on right now. It would be better if the ad networks provided their own plugins.... and we still have the option to make our own if we really want to, with SDK's and a bit of know how, willpower, brute force or cash.

    If you need a specific plugin for you project, why not hire a dev to do it? Or get together a couple of people in need of the same plugin and crowd fund it together?

    signaljacker

    So actually, Scirra would probably do way better by doing an event sheet plugin for other editors, since they can't cater for the other needs by many of the developers here?

    The event sheet is the only reason I chose C2 and still sticking with it. I don't have time, energy, and willpower to learn any coding language. So I kind of have to live with the limited export options in favor doing any game at all... lol.

    Agree with

    But the main thing is...If you want to do Console Games, why do you chose, C2?

    I think Construct is it's own nemesis sometimes. It's so easy to do a basic game that pretty much anyone can do it with a little bit of learning how the event sheet works. The problem with this is, do the games run well? I can only speak from my own experience trying to develop for mobile. At first I thought, bleehhhh performance sucks, but it turned out it's my own code/events that sucked. It was easy to make the game do what I wanted, but it's so hard to make the game do things efficiently.

    I'm sure there is a lot of talent on this forum, and a lot of people have great ideas, but just because you can do things, doesn't mean it will perform great on your desired platform. I've been struggling on and off with my first game for about 2 years. Often I put my main project to the side, and just mess around with C2 and it's capabilities, doing small test projects, just to try out some features/plugins whatever, and learning.

    But one thing I noticed, is that it's much harder than you think, very similar to my previous job developing for consoles. When I worked at DICE, we had a very very limited memory budget for UI, for Battlefield: Bad Company. You have grand ideas of what you wanna do but is set back by technology and what you actually can do....

    Developing for Consoles is more to it than just pushing out a game. Every console has their own QA department making sure things are up to par, and performing well. It's not like Google Play store where any "developer" can upload their clones and shovelware. You have to make sure on screen elements for buttons follow UI guidelines, and is clearly visible for a variety on TV screens and resolutions. Your game is not going to pass, if it's not up to par, at least that's what it's what like working on AAA title a couple of years ago. I don't know if it's a bit different if the console has an indie dev section.... but anywho

    So even if Scirra provided console export, you have a lot more working against you that just creating a game. Even if html5 games were supported better on consoles. It's gonna be pretty hard I guess.

    TLDR:

    When you have a game you want to develop, I think it's better to chose the tool right for the job, than expecting your tool to adopt to your needs. Your best bet is to chose an engine that is specifically designed for your purpose and does it well.

    So back to my first question. If you want to do Console Games, why do you chose, C2/C3?, it's not designed for it. And consoles are generally not designed to run HTML5 games.

    It's like choosing MS paint to do advanced photo editing like what you would do in Photoshop.

    Jayjay

    The problem is the pricing. there's pretty much nothing in Business vs Personal that differs (except how much you can earn?). I wouldn't mind paying even more than that if I got access to some of the pro stuff, more export platforms, more ad-networks, pretty much stuff that are targeted at studios rather than hobbyists.

    Either that or Scirra should be utilizing their own shop to monetize. They could sell more of their own products. They could make and sell their own plugins, instead of bundling it all for free. I never expect anything to be included, and I'm more than happy to pay for services/tools that makes my life as a dev easier.

    If a user base in a certain group get big enough we would naturally see more of those type of plugins/behaviors in store.

    Currently, I'm making my game in C2, in 3D using Q3D, Multiplayer for mobile.... talk about shooting my self in the foot??? The worst combination ever.... I would be more than happy to just toss 500EUR on the table, please give me that god damn 3D viewport in the editor, and official 3D support. If it was possible I would pay a developer to make a viewport just for me.... but I've already expored that option it's not possible. I even tried other editors, but I'm not comfortable with anything else than the event sheet..... soooo

    I wouldn't mind paying 500EUR also for an Event sheet plugin made by Scirra, for other engines.... that's how much I like the event sheet.