MMF2, the future and thoughts.

Welcome to our brand new Clickteam Community Hub! We hope you will enjoy using the new features, which we will be further expanding in the coming months.

A few features including Passport are unavailable initially whilst we monitor stability of the new platform, we hope to bring these online very soon. Small issues will crop up following the import from our old system, including some message formatting, translation accuracy and other things.

Thank you for your patience whilst we've worked on this and we look forward to more exciting community developments soon!

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  • It will be nice to see a more organized site. Mainly have a resources/tutorials section.

    Well, we already do have a tutorial/resource section on the Clickteam site, but it needs to be majorly expanded upon. I do agree that it seems counter productive to have to go visit various community websites to get everything you need. There's the widgets and file archives on the forums but a lot of stuff gets buried and you have to go digging for it. There's needs to be a more concise and efficient way to store and distribute this stuff on the website. But I'm very thankful for all the hard work that Nivram, etc put into their helpful websites.

    It would be nice if coders would submit there source to Clickteam for free public extensions. Obviously for paid/custom extensions they wouldn't want to do this.

    In regards to interface, I don't find it ugly. It's functional and that's all I care about. I wouldn't really want bloat to make things look "pretty".

  • Well, we already do have a tutorial/resource section on the Clickteam site, but it needs to be majorly expanded upon. I do agree that it seems counter productive to have to go visit various community websites to get everything you need. There's the widgets and file archives on the forums but a lot of stuff gets buried and you have to go digging for it. There's needs to be a more concise and efficient way to store and distribute this stuff on the website. But I'm very thankful for all the hard work that Nivram, etc put into their helpful websites.

    It would be nice if coders would submit there source to Clickteam for free public extensions. Obviously for paid/custom extensions they wouldn't want to do this.

    In regards to interface, I don't find it ugly. It's functional and that's all I care about. I wouldn't really want bloat to make things look "pretty".

    Yeah Nivrams site is so awesome, as I looked at that to see what MMF is capable of.

    Making MMF look "pretty" sure aint important, but making it look like it's part of the 201x's instead of have the feel of 199x's would make more naive people take a second look at it at least. I personally don't care but looking at screenshots and tutorials...well some people look at those things I'm sure.

    On the site(s), digging for info that's current is a major issue imho, and it scatters things all over. As a newcomer not aware of the history etc it makes things pretty frustrating. Would be great to have 1 site that brings the community, tutorials, sales, support etc all together in a structured and friendly fashion.


    Hi Omninorm. With MMF2 and the SWF Exporter there are more objects that can be used.

    Marv

    Good to know!

  • There are allready several physics extensions that allows you to make "real" physics. The best and latest one is the Box2D extension. You should check out Niffla's games, and especially the one called NightSky, which is a really impressive physics game made in MMF2. A better interface is something that will be improved for the next version.

    Ok, here's where I go on my usual rant...

    Yes, there is physics but it is only for standalone and flash. No iOS, Android, or XNA. Now, Gamemaker Studio has Box2D and it exports to PC, MAC, HTML5, Android, and iOS. I also found a post that said they are working on XNA. It also has built in particles. The problem with MMF is that if you want to develop for Android, Flash, iOS, and XNA are that most of the extensions won't work. Some features need to be built into the core program so that they are developed simultaneously and Physics/Particles are two that are important to game dev today (Cut the rope, where's my Water, Angry Birds, Limbo, etc.

    While I am on this rant and since it apply's to Omninorm's post... I really do not understand Clickteams business model. Most companies release new versions of their software annually or every 18-24 months. This helps pay for new features. Look at Adobe and Autodesk. Adobe is releasing creative suite about every 18-24 month and Autodesk is releasing every year. I own 30 licenses of MMF2 and I would be more than happy to upgrade all 30 to MMF3 if it had great new features like Particles, Physics, and maybe a few others like an 8 bit sound engine, Mode7, deformable geometry, inverse kinetic and all exportable to all the different formats (HTML5 would be nice too).

    I absolutely love MMF2 but I want to see MMF3, MMF4, MMF5, etc. Progressive development with innovative new features not just maintenance releases for 6 years. Oh and I will pay for it too!

  • I for one would hate upgrading to a new version of MMF all the time, though I guess if I could afford 30 licenses for MMF I wouldn't mind upgrading that much. Also, there has been free updates not related to just maintenance. HWA was added at no additional cost as well as the Java runtime, not to mention all the new extensions that have been developed over time. There is a Mode7 extension btw though I'm not sure if it's compatible with any exporters.

    Honestly, these companies that keep pumping out new versions all the time are doing it to make money, not because they add anything significant. I don't use Photoshop professionally, but is there really anything CS5 offers that makes that much of a difference over CS4? In my opinion no. Same thing for 3Dstudio, etc., unless you're working for Pixar or something.

    As for the Box2D extensions and the like, does Game Maker offer third party plugins similar to extensions? It sounds like those features would be included by the Game Maker devs themselves, whereas the current model for MMF is most of them are third party developers, so it's entirely up to them to port them to different runtimes. Maybe Clickteam should do more to make some of these helpful extensions become standard with all runtimes.

    Not saying your comments don't have merit, but I don't think it's quite as bad as you're making it sound.

  • MMF's 'maintenance releases' are about as different from the previous as the next CS is, and they don't (usually) take 18-24 months. There were literally only two major features added to CS4 to make CS5. The main reason that development was so slow, was that MMF2 only had two developers working on it. Now there are in the area of six, all of whom I know to be very experienced and talented.

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  • Hi Omninorm, and welcome! :)

    As a coder, you're in the best position for using MMF. If any feature is lacking, you can simply program your own extension. ;) It's a pleasant balance between usability and control. So for instance, I had quite a few game ideas that in the past were never finished because MMF always lacked some crucial feature to pull them off. Since I learned to program in C++, I can mould MMF into more or less whatever I want it to be.

    One recent example was that on windows sytems, MMF has never had the ability to ship fonts with it. It was a pain that had persisted since Klik and Play, because most people still didn't get that a font on your system wasn't necessarily on everyone else's. So I made Font Embed object, which just acts as a frontend for WINAPI's AddFontResource() function. It took literally just a few minutes, and voila! Fixed a problem we'd had for ten years. :D

    The only downer with using MMF when you're a coder is that as you advance, you may well find yourself missing functions and classes and custom data types. It's also sad that extension development is becoming trickier, because as MMF begins to expand into other runtimes, many extensions become fragmented - working for one or two runtimes, but not for the others. It's not an ideal system, but I'm sure CT will find a way to organise it all for MMF3.

    I suspect that if Clickteam really want cross-platform to work, they're going to need to let the app work on a much lower level; a bit like VBA for MS Office. That way, if they enclose a basic system that allows you to manipulate files and surfaces and internal object structures much akin to how the extension SDK does it, then they can port this basic system at the same time as the runtime, naturally porting all extensions that run in it as well.

    It would be like Microsoft porting MS Word to Linux, and porting VBA at the same time. Automatically, macros that would work on Windows would generally work on the Linux too. If CT can follow that idea, then most extensions will get ported much more easily.

    But we'll love them whatever they do! :D

  • The main reason that development was so slow, was that MMF2 only had two developers working on it. Now there are in the area of six, all of whom I know to be very experienced and talented.

    Their experience and talent was never in question by me. What is in question is the business model. If you do not update the program you rely solely on new customers for revenue. Six years of free 2.x releases is too long. I have no idea how many copies of MMF2 have been sold but lets just say if an upgrade came out that the amount of MMF3 adopters is 10,000. 10,000 x $99.99 is $999,900. That pays for a lot of development. It would probably attract a lot of new customers too. MMF is simply the best non-coding game engine and with features like cross-platform physics and particles and other innovations it would be impossible to beat.

  • I for one would hate upgrading to a new version of MMF all the time, though I guess if I could afford 30 licenses for MMF I wouldn't mind upgrading that much. Also, there has been free updates not related to just maintenance.

    As far as I know nobody has to upgrade. I am sure that there are people still using Photoshop CS1 as opposed to CS6. Just because I own 30 licenses doesn't mean that it doesn't hit me in the wallet severely but as a loyal customer, I would like to see Clickteam make money and innovate at the same time. As a business owner that means updates and new products not six years of freebies. (yes, I know that the exporters are new revenue). Maybe after the Android exporter comes out they will start working on MMF3.

  • Let's all tell this to Mojang, at 200 million dollar profit and the snapshots between version 1.25 and 1.3. All the versions actually. The business model that Mojang and Clickteam have is not one of greed, but for the user base. One of the reasons why customers love Clickteam is because of their business model.

    It is time to move along on this subtopic and leave Clickteam alone.

    Marv

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  • I believe MMF3 is already in development, how active I'm not sure at all. Clickteam have a very solid product in MMF2DEV and I would agree with Marv with his comment of leave Clickteam alone but it certainly isn't time to move along.

    I am fully aware and understand where Puff n Stuff is coming from. Yves and Francois were the only two originators yet between them they managed to create such an innovative and intuitive software that widens the scope on game and application development and authoring, over the last 2 years or so we've seen the exporters be slowly introduced. I do think it is a shame we are so far behind on the exporters BUT they are here now and that is what matters.

    I think they will and do need a new business model for MMF3, most certainly. They have the two great masterminds of Yves and Francois leading the revolution still and they also now have a plethora of talent in relation to Jamie, Looki, Andos, Stephen and many more on there side.

    I think after the experience the (CT) developers have had with the exporters and the experience we've had as consumer/developers they will certainly approach MMF3 with a completely rewritten model and business plan. It has to, the market(s) have changed, society has changed, sooo much has changed since MMF2 was released which these days seems a long way away.

    I'm looking forward to MMF3 and I hope Clickteam further inject their experience and talents into it at full pace. Marv, it now has to be a compromise between userbase and greed. It's not about Greed, it's about running a business. The more revenue Clickteam yield, the more staff they can employ, the more marketing they can achieve, the more viral side of things can take over. I wish them the best of luck and will be here until the absolute death myself personally.

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  • Speaking of exporters... does anyone know if an Android exporter is in the works?
    Im a bit frustrated that the Newground version does not have all the tools I need :)
    I need to buy MMF2 actually with exporters.

  • An Android exporter is in the works. Look at my signature, I'm testing it.

    Quote

    I'm a beta-tester of the Android Runtime.

    My Please login to see this link. (which I actually use), my Please login to see this link. (which I mostly don't use), and my Please login to see this link. (which I don't use anymore pretty much at all really). If there are awards for "'highest number of long forum posts", then I'd have probably won at least 1 by now. XD

    Edited once, last by happygreenfrog: Added quote. (July 12, 2012 at 6:57 PM).

  • I realize this was mentioned a while back but are Clickteam still looking for a new logo/name for MMF3?

    I'd be interested in coming up with something if you guys are still looking around.

  • I'm not thinking of MMF3 right now, they're working so hard on the exporters for this amazing product, it'd be a shame to start it all over again.

    I agree. I want to see the Android exporter (and I want it quick), but I don't mind if they do a MMF3 with a more user friendly or commercial appeal, as long as it's still compatible with all previous and future extensions.

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  • I realize this was mentioned a while back but are Clickteam still looking for a new logo/name for MMF3?

    I'd be interested in coming up with something if you guys are still looking around.


    They said they were thinking of starting a week-long logo contest, but didn't actually say they were, and Francois was displeased with all the entries bar one which another CT member didn't like.
    Long story short: yes, they are, afaik.

    ... I don't mind if they do a MMF3 with a more user friendly or commercial appeal, as long as it's still compatible with all previous and future extensions.


    It won't be, they will probably have a MMF2 -> MMF3 mfa converter that will be separate from the main program. It won't be possible to convert both ways.

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    Edited once, last by Phi (July 12, 2012 at 10:10 PM).


  • Yes, MMF3 is in development. However, it will not be called Multimedia Fusion 3. Clickteam wants to find a name that is better fit to attract new users and let the product sound like a professional tool.

    Has a name already been decided that I should make a logo for or is the name still in question?

  • No name has been decided, but the one that seems to be most likely is Fusion Engine. My preference is for ClickEngine, which I think I made a logo for in one of Francois' blog posts.

    MMF3 is in development, but it's in very early stages.

    IIRC, there will be no backwards compatibility for MMF3, however there will be forwards compatibility in that a converter application will try its best to change MMF2's format to MMF3's. This allows MMF to drop all of the old useless legacy features and bugs that its been dragging around since knp.

    I really hope Clickteam takes on a marketing agent for MMF3, since, as mentioned previously, both the market and society have been changed. In order to succeed, Clickteam needs to be more user-friendly and public. Francois took the first step in creating his dev blog, and hopefully more of them will follow.

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  • I love MMF, but I have to agree with Puff_n_Stuff about the need to port some of the extensions. Especially Box2D to the iOS exporter. Considering how big phycics are in the iOS market I think it would be a very good investment to implement Box2D to the iOS exporter. I think a very big part of new potential customers want to develop for iOS, and to see that it does not currently support physics would be a big turn off I imagine.

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  • OK, so I've been playing with MMF but I seriously need more than the free Newsgrounds version gives. I was battling with the movement a bit and I see that there are more ways to do the controller. Going through the forum I see it's preferred to not use the built in one.
    I was playing with a lot.. (almost all?? :D) of the 2D game creators out there since my last posts. I "click" how to do things in MMF and one other one. I bought a copy of the other one as it was cheap but I find it a bit lacking here and there. MMF seems faster + has the Flash export option. I see he Android option is added now and that is great.
    However... MMF2 being quite a bit more to buy, now have me asking the following question again. If I buy MMF2 now..... what happens when 3 comes around. Will I get a balanced discount? Should I just wait for MMf3?

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