Tokinsom's Forum Posts

  • I'm about to begin my first project using HD graphics. There are a few things I'm a little confused about. I would appreciate some input by someone who's worked with HD graphics in C2 before.

    1)Do you import your images at full size and downscale them in the layout editor? I noticed this makes sprites look better when zooming in the camera, but they look bad at the normal zoom level. They don't look as good as the source image at any zoom level though...

    On the flip side, scaling down the source images makes sprites look bad when zoomed in, but better at a normal zoom level. I'll also save a lot of memory that way.

    2)If so, do you draw everything "to-scale" and then downscale it by, say, 50% in the editor? Or is each asset individually scaled to your liking?

    3)Linear or point sampling? With pixel art this makes a huge difference. In my tests with HD art it was exactly the same...

    4)Does source image size affect performance at all? Or is it just the size of the object?

    Any other tips or tricks? Hell even a basic rundown of working with HD graphics would be nice. There seems to be a number of options here and I'm just not sure what's best. I've only used pixel art for 8 years!

  • Is the endless cry for native exporters even because of performance? I thought the issue was 3rd party reliance and the inability to export to consoles and such. Even exporting to Mac and Linux via NW.js seems to be pretty troublesome.

    I have had no problems with desktop performance for retro and HD games alike. I've seem some horribly optimized HD games that still ran very well. There's the v-sync issue of course, but that's not a C2 or HTML5 problem to my knowledge.

    Mobile performance was terrible last I checked, but that was like 3 years ago using CocoonJS or whatever. I'm with Lennaert on this one. Someone just needs to make a good mobile game example.

  • Hm. I'm getting consistent jank from your camera pan test and that vsync test website in Chrome. Significantly worse in Edge.

    I've heard a lot of people say the vsync/jank issue has been fixed but..er...it hasn't? It's gotten a little better but it's still very noticeable.

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  • Awesome we appreciate it

  • NaSTy Thanks!

    1. It is designed as a desktop game. There are few input events, and what is there is bundled together, so you can probably add touch controls in like half an hour. Also, it can be tricky to bring this to mobile devices considering the fixed-size rooms and map tiles. Honestly I have never seen a metroidvania like this on mobiles.

    2. Since this gamekit is modeled after Metroid, there are only ranged attacks. I am open to adding new things if there is enough demand for them though.

  • Yeah it does this with a number of currencies. Would be nice to have a tag for all currencies in addition to the symbol.

  • It's out! Check out the store page HERE

    Kyatric Can you please move this to completed creations? Thanks.

  • Now available at the Scirra Store!

    Metroidvania Game Kit is a comprehensive "full game" template for creating action/platformer games, particularly in the metroidvania subgenre.

    FEATURES

    • Familiar Player Character with 4-way aiming
    • Items/Upgrades & Collection Sequence + Message Box
    • Unique Enemies & Destructibles
    • Room Transitions & Alignments + Dynamic Object Loading
    • Minimap System (In HUD & Subscreen)
    • HUD + Energy Tanks & Missile Counter
    • Subscreen + Item Tabs & Large Map View
    • Save Points & Save Data Management
    • Window Scaling / Positioning
    • Visual FX
    • Title Screen + Menu
    • Hot Lava (ouch!)

    ADDITIONAL NOTES

    • Developed by C2 veterans
    • Fully commented events
    • Clean & organized project structure
    • No 3rd party addons

  • It makes the editor architecture simple. If the editor dealt with spritesheets and you edited a single image to be bigger, it could cause a cascade of spritesheet repacking, which affects many images instead of just the one you edited.

    Ah. I was just thinking of fixed-grid spritesheets like Pyxel Edit uses. If that's not the case, I assume C3 will take an approach similar to Unity's sprite atlases..? Will be interesting.

  • For the record, you can also do this with the overlay shader without force own texture. It's a little different though. More suitable for lighting effects and such.

  • Ashley Working on my first game with HD graphics. We are importing images and scaling them down in the layout editor to preserve image quality when zooming and such. This is a massive pain in the neck because instead of setting the scale to 0.75 or whatever I have to bust out the calculator and lower the width and height by certain percentages...for every single asset...and there are hundreds. You can already adjust a sprite's scale via events, so can we just have a parameter to do it in the object properties as well? I don't see how people work on HD games without this!

  • This has helped us tremendously with variable width spritefonts. Fantastic work! I was wondering though, could you add a vertical shift as well?

    Each character is either pushed up to the edge of its grid square, or takes up the whole thing, so we're having a hard time modifying them in photoshop. In this particular case we want to add a thick outline. We can try shifting everything over a bit and increasing the size of the grid squares, but I worry that will screw up the spacing.

  • Ashley At the very least we need an option to enable/disable effects in the object properties. What if I want one instance with an effect and another without it, or a different effect? How hasn't this been added yet O_o; Currently you have to clone the entire object.

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    -A String is just text. For example, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is a string.

    -JSON is basically just a type of data that uses text. In C2 it's mostly used to store all the information about something to use at a later time, like an array, a dictionary, or an entire object's properties & state.

    -Absolute value is a number's distance from 0. Positive is above 0, negative is below 0. abs() is commonly used to just convert a negative number into a positive one. Like abs(-100) turns into 100.

    -Instance Variable is just a variable that belongs to an object. For example, say you make an enemy object. When you place this enemy in the a layout, it is known as an Instance. You can give the enemy a variable like "Strength", and each instance can have a different value for it.

    -Save & Load are built-in actions to save or load your gameplay. I don't use them because you can't access every bit of information that has been saved. Instead I store data in arrays or dictionaries, and save them to local storage as JSON strings. Local storage is just a way for browsers to store data for later...like a bank of data I guess.

    Just keep reading the manual and learn from example .capx's around the forums or on the store. You'll get it eventually

  • Sorry to keep you guys waiting! If all goes to plan the Metroidvania Game Kit will be out this weekend.