wow, so, can you create the shapes on the fly with events? or do you actually load svg files? also, in the future might it be possible to texture the shapes?

before I read the above replies, I was going to say the head movement needs to be more pronounced, and maybe the hind movement less pronounced, but it might look fine with more head movement. Also, the tail, I would just copy from a slowmo vid of a wolf or a dog running, or attach a physics tail that you bend with sprite distortion in construct.

Seems something's a little off in the timing in the front legs.   I'm assuming this is on the todo list, but use the bone tweening on the legs aside from the frame flipping so the entire body is moving at the smoother frame rate.   

Overall, though, you're definitely on the right track.

this is a good reference:

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdikR_mxp6I&feature=related[/tube]

also, just searching youtube for "slomo wolf running" or "slomo dog running" has alot of other good ones. or maybe replace "running" with "gait" to get other options for speed

edit: although I wouldn't use the tail on that vid. not sure if wolves' tails (don't) move like that as well, but if they do, you should use some artistic license and embellish it

CC is an open source project that has been discontinued, too bad in my opinion, I really like it but I hope C2 gets even better than it

its not discontinued. Its still open source, and there is another version releasing soon.

open letter to construct community which discusses why they began c2 without completing cc

AXavierB, no, the stability issues haven't been touched upon in this build. There may have been a plugin stability problem or two fixed.   Most of the instability problems are with the construct classic ide itself. There aren't alot of problems with the exe's construct creates. As long as you save often, and to incrementing filenames at least sometimes (ie myproject.cap, myproject2.cap, myproject3.cap, etc) you should be fine. Its very fast and powerful. Just a few quirks to deal with here and there

Edit: ash beat me to it. oh well. Already typed it

Repsajo

I think there's at least one simple solution

just give it an extra parameter that contains an extra string parameter, to be set to "x" "y" or "z"    position("z")

also, I haven't made a plugin yet with c2, but if it has all the options construct classic does you should be able to create undefined expressions that don't require the name be explicitly specified in the code, allowing the ide to accept anything as an expression name. This way positiony or positionz can be handled through there by analyzing the name manually,

in construct classic sdk it'd be something like

long ExtObject::ReturnUndefinedExpression(CString& expName, LPVAL theParams, ExpReturn& ret)

{

switch(ExpName)

{

case "positiony"

   return ret=MyYPositionVariable;

case "positionz"

   return ret=MYZPositionVariable;

}

return ret = 0;

}

but handle positionx the normal way, then name the category something like "MyExpressions - also works with Y and Z".

this way right there in the category they see that there are alternate version of the expressions, but they still have the full list of the x versions, so they know what their choices are

The first way is probably less trouble (with the strings : position("x")) to implement,

and though the second method(undefined expression) is more natural in that you can just type PositionY like a normal expression, it would have the disadvantage that it would allow things like PosixionnY, which could make it difficult for a user to track down if a typo got through.

I second the suggestion about using For Each Object instead of always

yeah, that's pretty awesome and fun. cute lizard animation too

the On Function condition, like most conditions that begin with the word On, is a triggered condition. this means it is not executed or evaluated based on it's location in the event sheet. Only when triggered conditions are triggered are they evaluated. Triggered conditions are marked in the event sheet with a green arrow before the condition name

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1013446/trig.PNG" border="0" />

most games don't have that type of accuracy when lining up animations going from one animation to another. most 2d games instantly begin the jumping/slipping/tooCloseToEdge animation regardless of the point in the running animation they are in.

One exception is Prince of Persia, which ends up having a very different feel. A wolf should feel free, not stuck to a grid like prince of persia, and no player will be able to predict where in their wolves run they'll be when they reach an edge, and games are more fun when you can control them.   

That being said, I do think it's worth it to take the time to make animations blend smoothly into eachother, if that's something you decide you want to do. but I think the animation should work around the gameplay, not the other way around. for example, it would be better to have an alternate stopping-near-the-edge animation that starts from a different foot, rather than the same jump or near fall on the edge would have a different outcome depending on the positions of the legs in the animation.

Most of my personal projects in the past year or so have been experiments dealing with animation blending(albeit using bones, and specialized plugins), so it's an area of particular interest to me.   

Also, I like the wolf sprite you have there. is that your own art? if so, would you mind linking an animated gif, or your da page?

thanks halabalussa and Steven

I think steven, it makes more sense for it to work the way it does, so then you can have things happening during the transition, instead of an active previous layout, and a paused next layout. I changed your cap so it fades to the next color at start of layout to show an example of how to make this work for you.

download here

also in the cap is an example if you don't want something gradual like that, to simulate the start of layout coming after the transition, just replace:

Start of Layout

with:

System:Compare Time:greater than or equal to:(length of transition),

of course replacing (length of transition) with the actual length of the transition. probably best to set it to a global variable ('transitionlength'), so you only have to change it in one place.

nilesh, I could not reproduce the crash.

even when I used warpfade transition. please try the above file, and see if it crashes for you. the actual transition code is beyond the scope of my programming knowledge, but if this file doesn't crash for you, you can send me your cap, or narrow it down yourself, and see if it crashes only when a certain object is present, or when a certain behavior is on an object, or maybe only when you have certain actions on start of layout. just taking stuff out of your cap until it stops crashing. there is always a possibility I can find a problem that doesn't require an understanding of the actual transition code to fix.

can you make me a simple cap with just a transition on it. I'll have a quick look at the runtime code for transitions, and see if it's anything obvious. if it's a quick find/fix, I'll see what I can do.

I tried adding a transition to a basic cap, and the only option it gave me was 'none'. i've never used transitions before