John Cutter's Recent Forum Activity

  • Just a quick follow-up that might help someone else in the future...

    I solved this issue by rejiggering my array to put the zIndex values in the first column. Then, before pasting the cards, I do a sort. Unless I'm missing something, array sorts always happen on the first column only, hence the re-jiggering.

    This way the cards get created one-by-one with the appropriate z ordering.

  • For cutscenes and game events I ended up writing a camera with 23 active parameters - zoom and movement via tween or lerp with various curves, optional input blocking and types of hero tracking and forced scrolling. This saves a lot of time now.

    envoys: Can you describe your cutscene camera a little bit? The story I want to tell is pretty visual with lots of "sight gags". I can't afford to pay for all that animation so I'm thinking about using static comic panels and the timeline editor to scroll and zoom as needed. (Maybe with some limited animations here and there.)

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  • Thanks for the reply, winkr7! I'm going to have to study up on templates. I've never used them and I have no idea what they even do!

    I wish I had some tips/tricks to share to return the favor. Hmmm. This might be one! On my last game I added two text files to my project and kept them on my UI. One was for bugs, and the other was a ToDo & Ideas list. It was nice to keep everything together and I never had to leave Construct!

  • I've used Construct products for many years, but only for small demos and single screen games. Now, I'm working on a solitaire game for Steam that will have several different game mechanics, hundreds of levels and over 50 animated dialogue and cutscenes.

    Any tips for working on large projects? (Things I might not have needed to worry about with my smaller games and demos...)

    Tagged:

  • No one got back to me, so I just went ahead and purchased the DARCSS theme. I haven't used it long, but it's definitely different from Construct's included "dark" theme. I like it so far!

    I have a few minor issues, but I love that it allows me to see more of my project at once! For example, I just opened a group and measured how much vertical space my events required:

    Default Theme: 716 pixels

    Dark Theme: 853 pixels

    DARCSS: 582 pixels

    This means I can see more of my "code" without having to scroll up and down!

    Dislikes So Far:

    - I'm sure I'll eventually get used to it, but some windows (like the animation editor) are really hard to distinguish from the background as they are nearly the same color.

    - This is minor but DARCSS uses red and green colored rectangles for anything that can be toggled true or false (i.e. whether a sprite is global or not). It's a neat feature, but now it's a bit harder for me to to change font or other colors as I used to just look for the colored rectangle. Now, there's a bunch of them!

  • I've been leveraging a range of AI tools to assist with my current project, and their impact has been transformative. Many of my prompts require multiple iterations, but the iterative process itself has proven invaluable for helping me come up with a solution and just helping me better understand my problem.

    In my experience, the quality of AI-generated results improves significantly when I provide detailed, context-specific information. This means being explicit about referencing sprite names and even pre-defined global variables. The more precise this input, the more relevant and accurate the output tends to be.

    Additionally, I’ve found it beneficial to break down requests into smaller, more focused tasks. I usually try to implement features myself and only turn to AI when I encounter roadblocks -- particularly those involving intricate algorithms, mathematical challenges, or logic that requires a perspective that is new to me.

    The AIs I've tried are especially effective when it comes to exploring different problem-solving strategies. Rather than seeking direct solutions, I often frame my queries around conceptual approaches, asking questions like, “I want to accomplish THIS -- what would be the most effective way to tackle this problem?” This not only yields practical advice but also helps me think more critically about my own design and development choices.

  • I've used Construct 3 for a looooong time and I've always been sort of critical of the game's UI. The default theme, which is what I've always used, feels simplistic and outdated.

    Yesterday, I switched to the built-in "dark" theme, but I get fewer event lines due to the way they are spaced. I noticed that there is a DARCSS theme available for sale in the store. Is anyone using it? Is it different/better than Construct's included dark theme?

  • Well, good grief, I didn't even think to check the button's actions.

    I've been working on this problem for over an hour. I searched the manual for "focus", as well these forums, and couldn't find anything helpful. Then I tried Deepseek and ChatGPT but they kept suggesting: "Go into System and set the focus to your UI layer". Except there IS no "focus" event under System.

    This took 2 seconds and it works! Thank you!!!!

  • Quick Question: After I click on a button/checkbox how do I return focus to my game window?

    Context: I am working on a layout editor for a card game. I have a checkbox called "Pin Rotations?"

    Pin Rotations (Unchecked): When I push the left or right direction keys the cards will rotate around their image points, which are centered.

    Pin Rotations (Checked): When I push the left or right direction keys the cards rotate around a central point for all selected cards.

    Here's my problem. I select some cards, click on the checkbox, and then press the cursor keys. Nothing happens, of course, because the checkbox still has the focus. But if I click on my game window to return focus there it deselects all the selected cards.

    How do I fix this?

  • Most of my Construct 3 projects have been small, one screen affairs, but I'm looking to make a larger project for Steam.

    I always put all of my menus and other UI graphics in my main layout. It gets so messy! But ChatGPT just suggested using different layouts for these and putting them on global layers that I can just turn on and off.

    Does anyone (everyone?) already do this? Any gotchas or issues with this approach? Sure feels cleaner...

  • I'm working on an editor for a card game. I can drag a selection rectangle and move/copy multiple sprites, but the z order gets messed up. Not sure why this is happening, but I thought I could fix the problem by saving the initial z order (and updating this as needed) and then setting the z order again.

    Unfortunately, there's no way to "SET" the z order for a sprite, only the elevation -- which I know is a different thing.

    So how do I fix this? (Thanks!)

  • Thank you, Everade. I'm totally clueless about stuff like that. I'll do some research!

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John Cutter

Member since 11 Dec, 2015

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