Level design tools and more

Have you seen this extension for Unity3d? http://www.simbryocorp.com/Ferr2DTerrain/

I think it provides a very liberating workflow, it lets the developer/artist take a more a spontaneous, visual approach for the level design, rather calculating grids and tiles.

Have a look at this video:

The creators of Rayman Legends demonstrate their engine and they use a similar system. Look how effortless they make level design/art look <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile"> (ahem, anyone noticed the paths for the mechanical dragon?)

I have to stress out (again) the awesomeness of having a 3d space/camera for z-ordering/level depthing (that's an official term from now on people!)! Parallaxing layers is a very tedious task , the further away you are from the 0,0 coordinates, the more awkward it becomes to decorate the levels.

And to close my ranting, this is an other amazing tool:

It's like having Spriter on steroids but within the engine!

Imagine those tools implemented in Construct!!! Oh, I can dream, right?

Spriter should have deformations. Not sure when, or if we will get them.

Its a webgl only thing, however we can do quad skewing for canvas, which would make it more likely for us to get "officially".

newt ,

Yes, Spriter will soon (?) reach its v1.0 state and the developers said that eventually they'll add the deformation ability. The 2 key key points in my fantasy are the "within the engine" and all the stuff about "a more a spontaneous, visual approach". If someone has your skillset (I've seen the 3d corridor/labyrinth game that you've made with C2, and I can't even begin to imagine how you did it), I guess he or she can do pretty much anything. But look how effortlessly and naturally the Rayman team work in their platform. I am not comparing apples with oranges here, I am just saying

It definitely looks very simple and easy to use. I haven't bought Spriter yet, but if it does indeed add this feature, I will buy it in a heartbeat!

newt pointed out the technoligical elements for the deformation. However I agree on the other point. But this kinda brings in a mini issues about the subject.

1. Recently I found out from Ashley in the SDK sub forum. that the IDE engine they use restricts them from letting developers do any thing advanced in the SDK.

2. C2 users adopt 3rd party plugins that provide code features have an ok adoption rate. it seems that any major features C2 users think should be Scirra made only. MP is an example. There was an MP plugin created by c2 developer but never penetrated the market. only until Scirra made their own MP plugin did it start getting worked into projects. This mentallity has to go. If there isn't financial stability for some one to invest the time for such advanced tools then those tools won't ever get made. free is nice, but those tools require a lot of man hours of time and polish. Time and polish that can't effecivly be done in their spare time.

3. Every sample in the OP are tools created by 3rd party groups and not the Gamekit company. Unity team did not make Ferr2dterrain or Uni2D, and I have no idea what the Rayman team is using. But they do their own tools to.

4. C2 Developers need to use/buy 3rd party tools and C2 Developers who make the tools require the ability to create advanced(which is right now impossible with C2 IDE backend).

C2 foundation ground work has issues that need to be overcome. These are cool posting elios, but C2 won't see them. Instead C2 will need to evolve into C3. Same compiler engine, but needs an entirely new backend. Which won't happen until Scirra has a reasonably sized staff.

— Yep that's about it. As for the 3rd party plugins...if CC/C2 and MMF (which many Construct users used at one point) didn't have such a bad history with 3rd party plugins then people wouldn't be so apprehensive about using them today. There is no quality assurance when it comes to plugins..they are often buggy, unstable, have poor/lacking documentation, don't get updated frequently, and could be abandoned literally any moment. In fact I've had to cancel an entire game months in development due to poor integration of a plugin. Nowadays I avoid them unless they're REALLY special or offer something I know Ashley will never add (e.g. sprite sheet plugin w/ image offset).

As for tools like the level editor in the Rayman video...Though it may be feature-rich and streamlines the level design process, it's probably fairly difficult to use. I dare say it's like learning a whole new program in itself. C2 and the rest are all about accessibility and ease of use...even if that means sacrificing features and making things more tedious in the long run.

I think there are a lot of reasons for people to not change their mentality about 3rd party with C2:

First, some plugins just are not worth the time for some of them (I know I was personally only rarely interested in 3rd party plugins, most of them just are not for me, only the fgl plugin, the paster plugin, the clay.io plugin, and the spriter plugin caught my interest, from all the plugins I have saw)

Then you have the support problem, not only the plugin might not work anymore, but also you have to keep it up to date, and also, if you have a sort of advanced problem that needs a capx sharing to be solved quicker, a paid plugin will not help at all (and since most people asks for a capx, you see the issue, even just having the moveto behavior can lessen the amount of help by quite a lot).

I understand C2 relies on 3rd party and the community (every exporter other than html5, the SDK, the whole tutorial section of the website), however would anyone buy a plugin with no warranty that it will work in the long term, and so that they can make back their investment either in money or just satisfaction? Maybe, there are some 3rd party plugin that can be purchased after all, and some might say "we should not wait until scirra make them", I feel like it is more "it is hard to think clearly about what to do with them before having them".

For exemple, I do not know, and was not aware of (or do not remember), the multiplayer plugin you mentionned, when a feature is added to the update of C2, and that you can play around a little with it, you can start to feel it and imagine with it, without however, it is hard to concretely base something with a plugin name.

I could be wrong and the truth could be it is a "we want everything free! And officially supported hurr durr", but that seems kind of easy to be the whole truth.

C2 has its limits, that's true. To me, it is mostly a great prototyping tool, a software that provides a solid workflow when developing small games. But clearly, it would be nice to be able to share and rely a bit more on third-party creations (solid templates, maintained plugins with support...). I'm looking forward to seeing the official marketplace grow actually, it may bring some of that.

I second you, Aphrodite, the way the whole C2 experience is built, but also the market it targets (people with little programming experience) influences the way third-party products may be perceived.

By the way, the Rayman team, Ubisoft Montpellier, uses an in-house tech from Ubisoft called the Ubi-Art framework. A few ubisoft studios are working on extremely polished 2d games, and they have pretty big teams, so it makes sense for them to use an in-house piece of tech.

If Spriter was baked into Construct I think my head would explode from sheer awesomeness.

Its kind of a "Field of Dreams" kind of thing where they have to ask if it's really worth it financially. While it would probably lend itself to other types of games, for now at least it would be very niche, although I would say a very healthy portion of 2d games are platformers.

A third party editor for making maps is doable, it just doesn't lend itself to the workflow, and I don't see someone putting the time needed into one unless they went commercial. Then that person would also have to ask "If I build it will they come?". Then there would be a ton of debate on what features it should have.

Of course another option might be a community based editor where it could be forked for specialty enhancements.

Also I don't remember a 3d demo, I bet that was Yann.

newt I think he is referencing this :

newt , you are right, I had the CubeMaze by Yann in mind. Sorry, I meant no disrespect.

jayderyu , I understand what you mean, I'd also read on an other topic that C2 is build in a way that it's very difficult to change/add some core features.

I just think that some aspect in (game) creation are the same no mater what tool you use. All design tools offer guide lines for example. A new design software should include this feature because it's proven to be useful and should not wait from a 3rd party plugin to do it or for its users to request it.

Having said that, I'd expect from a game engine to have some features that are known to be useful, like animation tracks, path creation tools etc. And since there are many inspired 3rd party tools that had been made for the other game engines, try to implement them in your new software.

Of course, here lays the "one person developing" problem.

Tokinsom , I couldn't agree more with you about the 3rd party plugin problem. That's why I think that all those tools (ideally) should be included within a game engine.

As for the difficulty in using a tool like the one in the rayman video, if it's anything like Ferr2DTerrain I'd say that it is fairly easy to set up. I mean, the tile editor in C2 is more difficult INHO and it is only the last step in an amazingly tedious workflow of creating a series of tilled textures.

Valerien , while I underestand your point of view and your agreement in Aphrodite 's words, I disagree with your statement about people with little programming experience and I'll support that with this question: If Unity had the event system programming logic that C2 has, would that automatically meant that it is made for people with no programing experience? Wouldn't most of the people here jumped immediately into using Unity, with all its advanced futures, its extended functionality by 3rd party components and its wide spread of use in many titles and studios as an industry standard? I think yes. In my opinion, what defines C2 is not it's (wonderful) way of programing, but that it targets mainly the HTML5 platform (for good or bad).

eli0s : it's not what I meant to say. Construct is marketed as a product for people with no experience in programming. "Create games. Effortlessly." This message is what scirra picked as their main selling point. This doesn't mean Construct is only worth the leap for that. Nor that you can't use it if you're not a beginner or anything. But it does attract a lot of people who are rookies in game creation.

Valerien , ok, I am sorry, I misunderstood you. My argument is that a great and powerful software (tool) shouldn't be difficult by default. Computer programs have evolved so much in the last few years and they have brought opportunities to people that up until recently were available only to hardcore enthusiasts (with a lot of money) or big professional studios. I understand that in the eyes of an experienced and talented coder, anything other than code looks insufficient and ugly, but for the rest of us, that kind of tools are the means to create things that otherwise we couldn't make even in our dreams. That's the reason I expect more from C2, I think it's only logical to evolve the software into a more versatile tool, make it powerful enough to compete with Unity and win over it because of the event system workflow.

Im sorry...but i dont think that C2 is a underpowered engine... its a tool... and as any craft.... the tools do one part of the work... and the craftman does the rest... c2 is in my opinion the best 2D engine...

im making a game that...humbly i must say that will be the best looking game made with C2 (at least as of now)

and i must say that c2 is a game making tool, not a prototyping tool ( i hate when i see this asociation )

c2 will continue to grow... and become more powerful

if some day i have a game that with c2 is impossible, i will change to Unity until now...my money is on C2

with all respect... everyone that says that c2 is a noob engine... when they are unexpirienced (like me) and say that c2 is not suitable for their super game... i think to myself... you are starting wrong... you always need to start with a small step... with very solid platformer with original mechanics, fun gameplay, and beutiful graphics ( for example ) but if you want to start making a MMOFPS-COD/BF4 KILLER UPERDUPER SUPER MEGAME.... With 5000 $, you are asking too much... big games require big money and man force... how about you use C2 and make some good games instead? look at games like shovel knight... do you see anything that c2 cant do in shovel knight?? NO! then what is stopping you?? look at konjak... i see iconoclast...made with classic... and i plays and looks beutiful...

my game will rival games like dust and elysian tail