Feature Request:
avi/mpeg player object with no visible controls, which can run behind other objects, sprites, layers etc.
Example:
*
This is an example of what I'm talking about. Currently the included avi object overlays everything else, and has it's controls at the bottom. But in the above example, the animation is playing behind the ship, with no visible video controls. The method I used for this example is explained below, and as you'll see, it's not a usable solution.
Uses:
* Playing cutscenes in a more professional way, without having controls visible on screen
* Complex background animation which is either impossible, too resource intensive or too time consuming to create directly within construct, could be played back from a video file instead.
It would work pretty much just like the current avi object, but with the added option of not displaying the controls. And the ability to play behind any number of layers and/or objects.
Why have it?:
The current avi object is great, and does exactly what it says on the tin. But these two improvements would make it even more useful for the game side of things.
This can currently be done with a regular sprite that has all the frames added. However due to the nature of construct's compiling to a single file, and the number of sprite frames which would be used in this way. The resulting executable would grow well above a few gig in size for a small game using a different animated background done like this.
By using an mpeg or similar, it would:
Allow people to download the animated background videos as an option (without them a default simple background could be visible in the game instead if the player couldn't find the required file).
Avoids huge executable files by keeping a large chunk of the game as separate files. So if the exe needs updating to fix a bug, a player wouldn't have to re-download 20gigs+ of a single file.
It could also be possible to give basic interactivity to the video, for example if the player is moving forward, the video plays forward, if they move backwards, it plays backwards. Very basic I know, but this basic control might be useful in some types of games (like shoot-em-ups) where the player might have control of moving forward and backward in a level, so rather than the background continuing to move on its own, it stops as it should when the player stops. Setup right, this could give a pre-rendered parallax effect, using far higher quality effects than would be possible with sprites and tiles alone, without it causing any extra strain on the system. And being a video file, it would still be 2D.
Does this make sense? I mean, I think it could be a good addition. Anyone else agree?