Link to .capx file (required!):

dropbox.com/s/l60u90bgt4agdn2/slopeissues_01.capx

Steps to reproduce:

1. Approach jump-through tile from left and at a greater y position, travelling up-slope

2. Fall through

3. Rinse, repeat

Observed result:

Falling through jump-thru platforms when approached from below (greater y position) and to the left, and going up a slope.

You'll notice some weirdness in the way the walking sound is triggered based on first collision with a collision tile, even though the events that control it are very simple. Walk to the right, it works properly. Walk to the left, and it only triggers half the time. Maybe it's a collision problem connected to the falling through issue with the Jump-Thru behavior?

Expected result:

Not to fall through jump-thru platforms. This error only occurs when approaching a jump-thru platform from the left and at a greater y value, and when travelling up-slope.

Browsers affected:

Chrome: yes

Firefox: yes

Internet Explorer: yes

Operating system & service pack:

Win7 latest

Construct 2 version:

r148, r149

digitalsoapbox

Construct now has its own tile map editor so its probably best to switch over to the official plugin since your only making a platformer (it doesn't support isometrics,etc..). Also the reason why Ashley is asking to remove the third party plugins is mainly due to the point that you would have to download them just to run your capx, which is kinda bothersome. Also wouldn't it have been alot easier to just form the platforms in a paint tool then just place it on the canvas instead of using a 3rd party tmx plugin? You will still save on memory usage, if that's what your worried about in the first place.

I understand the concerns with using third-party plugins, but they also extend the functionality of the core software, which is why lots of programs support them. The built-in tile editor doesn't have the featureset I require for my purposes, and using plugins/external software in any development is pretty normal. I'll make up a simple example that shows the issue as well, as the issue is not inherent to any plugin usage, if that's the only way to get the issue looked at.

Using tiles significantly reduces level build times and, with smart use of pre-comping tiles that are just graphics onto one Canvas object that can have its resolution set at runtime based on available memory or user input, memory usage isn't really an issue and not what I'm worried about.

What I'm worried about is in the first post of this thread, which is that my platform guy falls through jump-through platforms if the collision polygons are sloped and he's approaching from the left and going uphill. I'm also wondering why collision detection seems to be different if the player is moving left or right. These issues will exist even if/after I switch over to the new native TMX importer.

Agreed, I was addressing points made that are tangential to the OP. No insults were intended, and a high WPM doesn't make me consider length. Let's move along.

quoted for the truth, I don?t see what can be more urgent other than tile mapping, now that the debugger is working, since it?s an essential feature to make lenghty games.

Auto-tiling, better collision control, animated tiles, flipping/rotation controls and runtime controls aren?t gimmicks o.o

Two things, because these arguments I'm hearing here and all throughout this thread for not figuring things out how to do things for yourself and wanting everything presented to you on an effortless fully-featured silver platter just don't make any sense.

1: Just because you think they're the most important thing doesn't mean they are. While I'm also making a tile-based game, there's a long list of other features that I'd consider more important, like killing some physics/collision quirks, which also affect tile-based games.

2: All of those things are entirely possible right now, as I've said. See above in the thread for some short example code.

digitalsoapbox: With all due respect, the hard way / "the way it always has been" isn't always the best or most efficient way. Last time I checked, Scirra has gone to great lengths to make it seem like C2 is one of the most convenient, easy-to-use, and all-in-one game creation programs out there, and pride themselves on ease of use. All we're trying to do is nurture this app to give it that extra edge it needs.

Call me crazy, but I feel that having a robust and easy-to-use in-engine tilemap editor without having to resort to a 3rd party app helps give C2 that extra edge and would be an extremely big selling point.

I never said "the way it always has been." Obviously things change over time, and hopefully for the better. Try comparing Deluxe Paint to Photoshop, and then apply that comparison to a tile editor from the 80's and Tiled. Obviously, much better.

It's also not an issue of "resorting" to a 3rd-party app. You use the tools that are best for the job at hand...you're not going to use a hammer to drive a screw into a piece of wood because you'd have to go find the right screwdriver and don't feel like you should have to. Unity isn't a 3D model editor/creator. MSPaint isn't Photoshop. Construct 2 isn't a self-contained game development platform, it's one of many tools you can use, if you want to, to make games.

I think my point is that it's not actually that hard, and it's far more efficient/realistic, to use the tools available instead of pining for features that may appear at some point down the road. I don't see anything wrong with C2 having an in-game tile editor, but at this point there are other options - and they're really not complex options (3 events maybe), and I'll even go so far as to happily provide code on how to do it, if anyone wants it, though it'll take me a little time to package it up and strip out my game code - that accomplish the same or better than imaginary features that currently only exist in our heads.

TELLES0808: Arcade isn't really my concern and doesn't really seem to be a point of sale, so I'm unaware of any 3rd-party plugin issues that may arise when using it. I'm making games so that, hopefully, I can sell them. So, is posting to the Arcade a big deal? For me, absolutely not, and it may be better to be concerned with finishing a game than where it could, potentially, maybe, possibly, end up. Considering the literally hundreds of other places you could place your HTML5 game, not being able to put it in one specific place, so unless it's highly-trafficked - I'd put money on, say, Kongregate getting more hits - shouldn't be a big deal.

—: Dude, yes.

You have to do this in every tilemap editor I've ever used, and what I've used goes back to the early 1980's, so I think it's safe to assume that's a lot of them.

I have no hand-typed list of properties. That's a) if you feel the need to do it, what spreadsheets are for and b) you don't really need to do it since you can just click on a tile to see its properties.

What do you mean, no visual representation? I see them just fine. Are you talking about in C2? In which case, that's not really relevant, since it's your job to build the tilemap after import through the importer, and pretty much how full OO game development works, whether in C2 or Flash, Unity, C+, etc. I've had huge Flash AS3 projects go through from start to finish without placing a single object on-screen manually for reasons other than testing it looks/works okay.

Tiles can be comped together into a single image using Canvas. If I'm able to figure out how to reduce 20,000+ tilemaps down to 800 or so (for collision/active objects), I have no doubt you can as well, not to mention the same multiple-object issue would exist with a built-in editor. I haven't been using C2 all that long - and other than the usual beta software quirks, I have yet to hit a wall in terms of making it do what I need it to do.

Just because C2 has a layout editor doesn't mean it has to be used.

As for importing TMX files at runtime, you answered your own question there. I expect there are other ways to make it happen as well, since you can pass a variable value as a filename to the AJAX object.

As for Tiled's workflow: Want to see a bad workflow? Look up Cosmigo Pro Motion, the go-to for pixel art/animation. I'll just say this: be glad Tiled is as easy to use as it is, and that it supports highly advanced 2D map-making features completely unavailable elsewhere, all for the cost of FREE. There's a reason (lots of them actually) game studios working on 2D tile-based game often default to using Tiled if they don't plan on a user-facing in-game editor.

I've had zero issues with the workflow of the TMX Importer. I do have a good bit of development experience though, so I haven't had any workflow issues and found it only took a few hours to get it doing exactly what I wanted it to do, mostly because I had to learn the associated events.

I think a lot of this discussion just sounds like people aren't aware that more often than not, no single program is the be-all end-all solution to every request. I think you'd have nightmares or at the very least break out in hives about some of the programs that you have to use in AAA game development if you expect C2 to do everything for you.

The short answer to all of this discussion is, really, use Tiled/TMX Importer. A majority of the feature requests are already implemented, and the big one that isn't - using big custom collision areas - is so inefficient as to be unnecessary.

Place tiles and use other, invisible tiles to set up collision in Tiled. If you want to build a tile-based game, that's the way it's done, and if you want it to be easier to build without having to wait on new C2 features, that's the way you should do it.

TELLES0808: You can do animated tiles with TMX imports already. Have a single tile with custom properties set up in Tiled's tilesheet that tells C2 (through events) that the tile is animated and the name of the animation to use. Using multiple tilesheets works in a similar way.

For example:

Animated Tiles:
+ System TMXImporter.TileProp("_animated") = 1
Set animation to TMXImporter.TileProp("animationname") (play from beginning)

Multiple Tilesheets:
+ TMXImporter On each tile cell
Set animation to TMXImporter.TilesetName (play from current frame)

linkman2004

PM'd you about this, I might have some budget to push development along.

Ashley

The 3rd-party plugins (Canvas, TMX Importer, Mgaicam) are required for the project, as all sprites are placed based on an tilesheet .tmx file. If the .capx gets any more minimal, it will not function at all. These 3rd-party plugins in no way affect collision detection, however.

The issue with jump-through is also clearly visible in the example HTML5 export provided.

I've also had this happen in Firefox (latest update), including after HTML5 export. A page refresh typically fixes the issue, though sometimes I have to refresh a few times. Haven't had the issue when exporting to Node-Webkit.

Check out the TMX Importer plugin, which lets you do every one of those things:

scirra.com/forum/plugin-tmx-importer_topic49949.html

digitalsoapbox - That should be fairly easy to implement, so I'll see what I can do. However, I'm incredibly busy right now, so no estimates on when I'll have an update out.

Awesome! I've tried limiting it myself when the zoom gets above/below a specific zoom level using MagiCam.GetZoom and stopping it from cross those thresholds, but I end up with a strange scaling flutter near those ranges.