ok, did the double hinging thing (thanks soldjah boy)

there are much fewer events and objects now

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1013446/katama2.cap

there's a problem now

it should be easy to say, if you're stuck, and you collide with them, they get stuck to you

however, if they're both the same family, it won't be easy to make events

that say hinge one to two, and two to one, because they'll both be picked and they'll both be the same family

there's a hacky way out of it, which is to do kindof what we were doing before, which was to replace the physics one, with a nonphysics one

this time, it would be to replace the physics one, with anotherphysics one

but from a different pickedup family

that way we can instruct construct about them separately

maybe soldjah or someone can come up with a better way than that. I suspect there might be, but it would definitely work, and I'll try to whip it up before my kids get home

[quote:2u37aa4z]Will construct still think the katamari is 5cm, because the katamari and the object are only hinged together, but not considered the same object? In MMF2, I'd fix this with flags.

you can use private variables in the katamari to update it's size, by adding together the size of everything that's on it.

but seriously, I know it's getting annoying by now, but read some of the tutorials and the wiki, you should really have known about private variables at least before you started this project. I'm not discouraging you from doing it, or even doing it now. I'm just saying at least one wiki page or tutorial a day. they don't take long, and you'll feel more comfortable. I don't mind helping, and I'm sure neither does anyone else. but at this point you're not going to learn as much as you would if you had some more of the basics down. and you're having other people develop your game, when it starts turning into a real game with your own graphics, and your own custom features, it's going to get bigger and bigger, and you're not going to want to give up just because you don't understand all the code so far, or because you can't recruit coders. construct is really easy, but different from other languages and dev packages. just make it a point to learn at least one thing a day, and then when you have a question of how to do something, you'll at least know where to look in the wiki for the basic stuff. know what I mean?

so...your first assignment is: http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/c ... _Variables

davioware

or maybe a chain of invisible sprites for collision detection?

I haven't tried the chain of sprites thing yet, does it come out looking smooth?

The pink ball is a great idea, but I'm not well versed enough in Construct to even start thinking about how to code something like that... I'm sure someone could do it though. I need a team of people for this game, I'm thinking.

That was my initial thought, although I couldn't find a way to get the objects stuck to the katmari stick to each other. See, an object that is stuck to the katamari needs to pick up other objects that it touches. But the objects can't stick unless one of them is stuck to the katamari, otherwise you'd have objects stuck together everywhere. So we need something like this...

If the katamari touches an object...

If object is smaller than katamari...

Stick the object to katamari

Turn on variable "stuck" to object

If variable "stuck" is on...

On collision with new object...

If new object is smaller than katamari...

Stick new object to object

Turn on variable "stuck" to new object

I'm actually working on a lot of art and sound for this game and it's going to have an interesting paper cutout style, or perhaps a retro one. But if anyone is interested in joining the team with me and helping with coding, I'd love it.

Another important feature is that every object is assigned a size, and that the katamari automatically picks up anything smaller than it. This way you don't have events for EVERY OBJECT that the katamari picks up. Something like this.

(Object is 5cm, size is a variable. Katamari is 55 cm.)

If Katamari size is > than object size, pick up object.

On collision with object smaller than katamari...

Stick object to katamari

Add object size variable to katamari size variable.

So the katamari should now be 60cm.

However there is a problem with this too (other than the fact that I don't know how to code it.) The katamari needs to only pick up objects that are at least 40% or maybe 50% smaller than it. You don't want a 200cm katamari picking up a 199cm object.

im in a bit of a rush, so im probably answering in the wrong order, but the last thing you said, to code stuff, just learn to say the problem in construct:make a family-pickupables

on collision with pickupable, if pickupable.size, is less than katamari.size/2...then do whatever.

soldjah boy is right, i had done that by mistake, and didnt think of the usefulness at the time..double hinging will stick the object.

theres a solution to the other thing too, but breaks over

gotta get back to work

wow, that was super helpful, thanks tons!!

no prob

okay, a couple things. the example looks pretty good. do you suggest the actual ball should grow as more and more stuff is picked up, or just that the stuff is getting more and more?

I'd suggest the second one, although you might need to do what they did in katamari, and have smaller versions of each sprite that you load up as it gets bigger to save vram, also maybe something using canvas to paste all your sprites to everytime you get a major zoom , so you're not keeping track of the rotations of hundreds of objects

you lost me on the invisible stuff but it all sounds very good on paper....

imagine that you made the exact same red circle, without physics

and you made a pink circle with physics the exact same size, but set to invisible

every frame you told the red circle to set it's location and angle to the invisible pink circle

so far it behaves the same, but when you pick things up, you figure out a math formula that will change the shape of the invisible pink circle so that it circles the redball and the junk, and you'd have to find other formulas and expressions to position the ball on this new pink one, but the idea would be something like this:

<img src="http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1013446/kata.jpg">

.... also, how will i be able to have the camera zoom out as the ball gets bigger? would there be an easier way to "simulate" this effect? and how will the ball know to only pick up objects that are bigger than it?

really, before you tackle this you should go through all the tutorials and the wiki, there are zoom commands here for layers: http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/construct/index.php?title=Layer_Properties these might affect physics...not sure

and as for the size of the objects, you say

On collision with PickUpableObjects
System-Compare-If PickUpableObject.x*PickUpableObject.y is less than or equal to [the total size of your ball+junk]
then stick things to it[/code:39ux9du4]
gotta go, gonna be late to work
but seriously, I know construct is superfun and easy, but, play around with all the tutorials, and read the wiki, construct has a lot of awesome stuff to make things easier

have fun

k

first, this is a harder project than you think, mainly because I don't think construct physics are stable and refined enough to take center stage on gameplay, you're going to need to be comfortable with construct to make something like this work, let alone playable and fun

that being said, you asked for some help to get started, I have to get to bed, so I can't go into detail of how it works, but you can examine the cap, and if anyone else is awake they can help you as well

this is to help you get started, some ideas of how some things might work

it's a physics ball, with left and right arrow keys to roll, and spacebar to jump

and when you run over things they stick and roll with your ball

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1013446/katama.cap

some more info:

I originally tried making them stay real physics objects when you picked them up, using stiff hinges, but they didn't turn with the ball

you'll have to find a way to fix it so your ball rolls differently when things are stuck to it,

one idea which will work fairly well considering how easy, is to make the sprite for your ball not have physics on it, and make your ball sprite always update it's position and angle along with an invisible physics ball sprite of the same size. until you pick something up it would look exactly the same as it does in this example

every time the ball hit's an object, use math to change the shape of the invisible physics ball, so it encircles both the sprite of the ball, and all the things attached to it

if you're using ellipse physics, it will still be able to roll, but it can have a wobblyness to it, as it get's stretched more in certain directions

this should be a pretty good starting point

if you're unclear about the idea of using invisible sprites, a different example is in deadeye's platform school tutorials. I won't post a link, because if you haven't already, you should familiarize yourself with all the help resources

good luck, and welcome to construct

if one picks BoxA (member of BoxFam) and pairs it with CircleA

one should be able to say

for each paired BoxFam, pick CircleA

or

for each paired BoxFam, pick CircleFam

or

for each paired BoxA, pick CircleFam

etc

in the following cap

dragging an A or B box over a 1 or 2 will highlight it as picked

after that if you drag a picked 1 or 2 above the red line it should highlight the A or B box

click here for cap

if you go into the event sheet, and switch around which event is toggled

it behaves differently

there is only one difference between the two events:

the original event uses sprite-compare y position

and the second event uses system-compare sprite.y

should I post this to the bug tracker?

I was trying to recreate the bug from a larger cap where it had more serious effects

it also began with

for every A, pick B

and then after the system-compare, it would pick some unpaired objects that belonged to another pair

you can try putting the laser on it's own layer

and applying a layer effect to that layer

ok, here's a simple cap

example

I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how short it is

it sounds more complicated than it is

please examine it, and let me know what parts, if any you need help with

to test, drag and drop the ship and the two control points

click here to download

make a segment of laser, like if you could cut a small square out of the raiden laser going straight upward

create a distort map for it, 1 across, however many segments you want down (try 10)

create 2 different sprites to use as a bezier control point and an endpoint (we'll call them sprite1, and sprite2)

make a bezier curve using the quadratic function (qarp)and the locations of the 2 sprites and the an imagepoint on the nose of your ship

if you need help understanding what you're doing a little better, read some of this wikipedia article, especially the little moving diagrams near the end

but for practical purposes what you will do

is set each segment of your distort map in this way

h=half the width of your laser

for 0 to NumberOfSegmentsOfDistortMap

set displacement (real) column(0)row(loopindex)

x to qarp(ship.imagepointx(nose)-h, sprite1.x-h, sprite2.x-h,1-loopindex/NumberofRowsindistortmap)

y to qarp(ship.imagepointy(nose)+h, sprite1.y+h, sprite2.y+h, sprite2.x-h,1-loopindex/NumberofRowsindistortmap)

set displacement (real) column(1)row(loopindex)

x to qarp(ship.imagepointx(nose)-h, sprite1.x-h, sprite2.x-h, sprite2.x-h,1-loopindex/NumberofRowsindistortmap)

y to qarp(ship.imagepointy(nose)+h, sprite1.y+h, sprite2.y+h, sprite2.x-h,1-loopindex/NumberofRowsindistortmap)

this will bend your sprite along a curve beginning at the nose of your ship

and ending at sprite2, and the curve will be guided by sprite1

always

set sprite1.x = ship.x, and sprite1.y = to ship.y + a number that makes the ray look cool

sprite 1 will be guiding the laser, so if you want it to lean toward y, subtly the way it does in raiden this is a good way to start

set sprite2.y = 0 (top of the screen), and sprite2.x to ship.x + a number that changes when you're moving to the right or left, you can decide exactly how you want this to look

you can also add small random values to either control point for a wobbly effect

use an instant bullet aimed at sprite2 to check for hits

once you hit an enemy ship, set sprite2's position to the position of the ship

and make sprite1 move drastically to the right or left as your ship does

if you need more details on any of the steps I can help you, but I can't post a cap just now

if you get this far, you may notice something a little different about the bending of the ribbon

because we're using parallel lines, the fix is simple, and takes only a minute, but might be confusing in the middle of this

I think this would be useful as well

one example was that random star map generator

I could have only tracked a few stars at a time

and still been able to make a huge level where you would see the stars you passed if you went back to look for them

I like it rilem

but I think you should have only that one section under the first one

and a huge download button as aritz said

then when you click that it should bring up the download latest stable and all that

and I also agree with quazi

we have to get some cooler graphicalness that shows what construct does, without being too specialized towards one particular game