Fusion 3 blog any time soon?

Quote from SirEatAlot

I would say behaviours are more specific and event sheets are more general, not connected to a specific object, but works more like scripts but instead of code they contain a list of events. So each frame could include a number of event sheets for different purposes, so one could make certain event sheets that are general and works over many different frames, and specific for certain frames. So decouple frames and events fully so one can mix and match frames and events as needed in each case. Would make reusable code much easier and allow multiple people to work on different event sheets, ie different parts of the game code at the same time. Anyway, it's not a fully defined concept, but it's something that been kicking around on these forums for many years now. I've always found it sounding like a good idea.

According to the very first F3 blog post, making custom events is possible (basically scripts)Please login to see this attachment.

In Fusion 2.5, there are a lot of ways to achieve modular code, one way is to use functions..

While i's true that functions don't exist in Fusion, you can either use extensions (all of them are windows runtime only for now) or do "fake" functions with fastloops, foreach loops and values for parameters, something like this:
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Then you can have the actual core behavior stored anywhere, let it be behaviors, normal events, or global events, and the order won't matter because fastloops\foreach loops are immediate..

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As can be seen above, the core code is actually stored in global events, while the function was called in normal frame events. and event though I set the order of events to run global events, frame events, then behaviors, it would still work because they are immediate, so they will respect the order regardless of where you put the core code in..

you can also do callbacks this way:

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Which was initially called from this core handling code:

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So as you can see, modular code is possible in Fusion 2.5, and with what I explained above, you can kinda achieve scripts this way, also this is not the only way to do it..
While I understand that it's not the most ideal thing, but it generally gets the job done until we get Fusion 3, hope that helps a little

You can maybe check this example to see how modular code and callbacks can be useful for something like a custom movement: Please login to see this link.

Quote from Zoglu

More like "are we ever going to see Fusion 3" ?
Seriously. Fusion 3 is vaporware. In "devlopment" since like 2013 at least, no major substantial announcement for years.

I understand the frustrations, we all want Fusion 3 too, actually Clickteam needs it at as well maybe even more than us, but it seems like the engine encountered many development difficulties and it's generally a very big scope project..

In 2018 they were running low on funds and struggling financially, so they had to start porting and publishing games to other platforms, things like FNAF and whatnot
Due to the small team size, they couldn't work on both the engine and games at the same time, so they had pause the development on Fusion 3, at least the editor part (it seems like the nucleus runtime was still being developed alongside the games)

This lasted for some time until late 2020 or early 2021, then they continued working on the engine again, but apparently a lot of stuff were rewritten to keep up with modern standards and generally make the engine better and more flexible, they also increased the team size then and had a team working for F3 and the other for porting services

Also this year they hired a new dev that sped up the engine development significantly as Yves said above

Quote from Zoglu

Fusion is almost unknown among game developers, only a handful of successful game released

This is not true, while Fusion is definitely not as popular as other big players these days, it's still being used a lot (also it's not fair to compare Fusion popularity with very big players anyways)

It of course could be better, Clickteam needs to improve there marketing (a lot) for example, but there is also another issue..
Devs using Fusion don't even want to mention it much, being afraid that they would get "criticized" for using it, due to some people having the wrong idea about the engine

Quote from Zoglu

and they rely on a 3rd-party exporter not available to the regular customers

This is also not true, they use there in house engine (which is apparently something between F2.5 and F3) to port those games

Quote from Zoglu

The current product is totally outdated, some parts of it are still based on Klik n Play, and basic features like sub-events or qualifiers in global events (I always thought this was a bug dating from the original MMF) are only available in a separately sold DLC. Most exporters are not maintained anymore.

While some parts of Fusion are definitely very and old, some are outdated, but that's due to the engine keeping compatibility so far back, that it's able to open KnP projects..
If you think about it, not even 64 bit windows is able to open 16-bit applications from the 90's, while Fusion can still open the source file (which is .gam if I remember correctly) of such ancient project! and this easily makes Fusion the best engine in keeping compatibility with older projects..

Of course, this comes with a cost right, they cannot update everything or compatibility would break, not only with very old projects, but also new ones, and they can't make a compatibility option for everything or the engine would get bloated fast (Fusion already has some compatibility options in some parts anyways)

But that doesn't mean the entire engine is outdated and can't be expanded on, this is very wrong, over the 10 years Fusion 2.5 existed, Clickteam keeps updating it with features and bug fixes..
Fusion has been improved a ton with the updates over the years, in 2022 alone, Clickteam released a major free update to Fusion (build 294) that introduced many features, some were very big and hard to implement to Fusion codebase (not to mention the modernized engine look and the important bug fixes of course)

Fusion 2.5 plus DLC was was a major addition to Fusion, Child events alone are a game changer, and only advanced users of the engine know how useful, and even essential in some parts it can be
They couldn't just release it as a free update, especially when they were in financial troubles (and considering how much effort it required to bring these kinds of features, child events alone must have been a hassle to implement)

Not to mention, that most engines are subscription based, so there updates are not really free, (I mean, open-source ones are free of course, but they get funding via community support) only one closed source engine returned to the one time purchase scheme very recently and that was only possible due to the engine becoming very popular and profitable that they would be benefiting in either case..

Another thing, Exporters are still being maintained, Windows, Android, iOS, HTML5 and even UWP are constantly updated with bug fixes, features and general maintenance such exporters require (like how android requires maintenance almost all the time because google cannot stop changing stuff)

Also an important thing to consider that Fusion updates are being worked on by what seems to be only 2 devs, Yves and Fernando, so considering they are only 2 people working on free updates, they are doing a great job

I could go on and on on how Fusion is definitely not as outdated as may think, A lot of people don't how powerful the engine can be due to lack of knowledge
Many people don't know te various features Fusion provides, for example, a large part of the community have no idea how powerful Fastloops and foreachloops can be, and how can they be used in advanced ways, even mixed together..
Another example being how most users don't know how to get the most out of object selection in Fusion due to not understanding it

So there is a lot to consider, community work still continues with new extensions, existing extensions\shaders that are being ported to other runtimes..etc

All in all, Fusion is not an outdated engine, of course many parts can be improved on, but that doesn't mean everything about the engine is outdated

Quote from Zoglu

So as I said, this is not available to most customers.

I meant to quote the "3rd party" part, as 3rd party implies they are using tools not made by them
And yea it's not available to all, because only Clickteam devs know to deal with it, it's not a finished engine (if it is, they can already give us F3)

Quote from Zoglu

Well, back in 2006 they shouldn't have made MMF2 backward-compatible if this means keeping up with old bugs and limited features all the way up to 2023 and beyond.

Tell that to the users, Clickteam would have received immense backslash if they done this with MMF2, actually, some users today would be mad if F3 is not compatible with F2.5 (even though it's meant to be a generational leap)

Not to mention that Fusion 2.5 was not planned in the first place when MMF2 came out, MMF3 (Fusion 3 old name) was planned from a long time, they just made 2.5 as a stop gap of sorts until F3 is finished, they didn't expect it to take so long themselves..
Actually, in 2013 Click conversion, they said F3 would be released at 201X, so no expected, not even Clickteam it would take so long, what really happened is lots development hurdles as I explained above

By the way, i'm not fully defending Clickteam that it took so long in development, just mentioning known facts about why things are the way they are

Quote from Zoglu

Well, take a look at *** or *** update cycle. Now go read Fusion last changelogs. Who would know porting FNAF took so much time ?

Again, you are comparing engines with way bigger actively working teams, newer code base, and better financial situation..

As I said above, only 2 people are actively working on Fusion 2.5 updates, now combine that with old code base and limited funding, and you would see how Yves and Fernando are actually doing a great job at updating the engine with bug fixes, and new features

Quote from Zoglu

For God's sake this is a standard feature in *** since like 2012, along with named variables, actual functions and loops, and qualifiers in global events because event sheets are not attached to a scene and can be included in others.

it is a standard feature yea, but that doesn't mean it was easy to implement into Fusion, also they had to make money somehow you know, Fusion is a one time purchase after all

Quote from Zoglu

Fastloops is a hacky feature, which allow users to mimick stuff like for loops or functions but with inefficient, hard-to-read code. Take a look at how you'd write the same code in *** or ***, and this would not be reserved for "advanced" users because these features are actually readable and easy to understand in other game engines

I don't get what you by "Fastloops is a hacky feature" or "inefficient, hard-to-read code" because they are not hacky, not are hard to read, in fact they are very easy to understand and read
If you mean about how to mimic functions you have to use them as a workaround, I do agree that it can get annoying, especially if you try to add paramets and returns into the mix, you can actually put some of the blame on how basic most of the Fusion userbase is, some do not even understand what are fastloops and how they can be used, so Clickteam never considered such features as a high priority therfore they never added it as a built-in functionality

Again, not defending Clickteam about not adding functions, in fact, it's one of top features I want to see in Fusion, just mentioning facts..

Also, the community did a great job on these kinds of parts, there are many function extensions out there, and while it's true that most of them are pretty lame considering they are windows only and you can pretty much do the same exact thing with fastloops, foreach loops and values and you at least have cross platform compatibility, some of the newer ones like Phi's DarkScript ext (paid) or defisym's function extension are great with many features and intuitive workflow

And this is not only limited to function alternatives, you also have extensions like SDL for controller support (the newer one is especially great, maybe even better than how F3 would initially have controller support at), tons of shaders that are being developed and\or ported to other runtimes..etc

Quote from Zoglu

Same for object selection which is handled much more easily in ***.

Sorry but this not exactly true, while Fusion's object selection ways of doing things is different compared to other engines\libraries, it doesn't mean it's worse or harder
In fact, Fusion's object selection is really powerful and easy after you understand it's fundamental rules, after that everything makes sense

I do have a blame on Clickteam part though for not documenting it properly (same with other features) and this is probably the main reason of why not many understand it