Posts by joegp

I was wondering if there's a way to make a cast shadow effect, maybe just by using a transparent object, that will overlay on the character but not the backdrop?

For example:
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Since I currently have the non-Steam versions of everything, does this mean that I wouldn't be able to use the exporters from this bundle with Developer functionality unless I upgraded to Developer again with the Steam version? Thanks.

Oh, OK, cool, thanks!

OK, cool, I'll definitely keep trying at it. Thanks so much for the help!

I had an idea, and maybe this won't work, but I'm wondering what you think. Is there a way to start the level, log the positions of every instance of an object, delete all the objects, and then create them on the fly using the recorded information? I'm thinking this might be a good compromise to going the whole level editor route, which after watching and following along with several of the videos, I really don't know if I'd be able to successfully implement.

Awesome, thanks so much! It's about time I start properly doing this stuff. This is really helpful.

Cool, thanks for the suggestions! I actually bookmarked the video series on the level editor a few months back, guess it's time to sit down and try to learn it.

As far as deactivating all off-screen objects, how would I go about doing that? Sorry if that's something simple, I haven't done it before. Thanks!

I'm working on a platformer, and up until this point everything has run smoothly. I do have 10 layers, which 8 of them are at different parallax rates, mainly to test how far I can push it right now. The resolution of the game is 800x450, and the stage size is 45000x2000. All the layers besides the main one have repeating quick backdrops with transparency. There's lots of platform active objects the character interacts with on the stage. With all of that, nothing has caused any slowdown. But once I added lots of little pick up items, just active objects 16x16 in size, solid color, that are destroyed upon collision and add points to score, the game slowed to a crawl. If I destroy these objects on start of frame, the game runs smoothly. I tried reducing the backdrop objects, and have them not repeat at all, didn't help. Lowering colors from 16 million to 65536 didn't help. So I'm left to believe it's the amount of objects. When running, it says 2750 objects, 198 mb.

Any help would be appreciated! I'm pretty ignorant about optimization in general, although I have looked through some tutorials on here and haven't found anything that seems to address this particular issue. Thanks!

Quote from paobrasil

AyreGuitar is right. Like I said....I think you should rethink the whole program and logic of your app.....It's so crazy to know that have 500 big images per active object...

I think that you could use different frames...

Yeah, that's an interesting idea, I just have to figure out how to implement it. I've never used INI or Active Pictures before, so I'm kind of clueless about it. This active object thing was actually an attempt to restructure the app because I realized that having a comic per frame would mean I'd end up with hundreds of frames (which is how I originally structured it). I thought by consolidating the comics into one frame it would make things easier, but I hadn't considered the memory issues. I'm gonna test to see if the app works at all even with a single comic, because I actually haven't tested that yet, so it might be a problem with the code or something. But if I'm able to squeeze maybe five comics into a frame, that would reduce the amount of frames by five, which is something. I'm definitely looking for any possible solutions to this because I'm so close to being finished and now it looks like I have to go back to square one.

Quote from paobrasil

These pictures that you are using....how you are using? backdrop? active object? picture?

I dont think that the problem of black screen it's because the full size pictures...I dont know....but if you are using "PICTURE" maybe the source path file are wrong....then will not show pictures...

Right now it's an active object. The way it's set up is that there's a single active object with about 50-80 animations. Each animation has two directions - one direction is a single image that is the full comic and the other direction has 6-12 single panels, one per frame. The idea is that you can zoom in on the comic and then navigate panel by panel. It works fine on the PC, but is pretty slow in both saving and loading. Considering how I'm doing it, that's about 500 large images contained in a single active object. Is there a more resource efficient way to do this?

I am nearing completion of a comic app, but when I try to test it on the iPad, after the MMF2 logo, the screen is just black. My assumption is that the application is just too large, since it's crammed full of 990x720 size pictures. Would using the "Active Picture" be a solution to this problem? I've never used it before and am not sure how it works or how I could include a directory of images bundled with the app on the iOS. Or is there some other solution? Thanks for the help!

Quote from King_Cool

Hey Joegp
I have an interesting idea for you.

...
I once created an Interactive Book where the User could turn each Sheet by using the mouse ( much like a real book ).
The Sheets would scale in the x direction as you turned them.

You could do something similar.

( 1 )
- You have 1 Main Application wich contain pages the user can turn.
- The Main Application does not contain any content ( Comic Book Pages ) but rather empty Sheets and the mechanics for turning th Sheets as a Book.
- Make the Pages Active Pictures ( you only realy need 4 Active Pictures for any number of Pages in the Book )

( 2 )
- Distrebut your content ( Comic Book Pages ) as picture files, seperate from the Main Application ( encrypt the picture files so that only your Main Application is able to read it ).
- make it so that the picture files are extracted ( by whatever means ) in an organized maner in Folders for each book at a specific location on disc.

( 3 )
- Now since the Sheets in the Main Application are Active Pictures, you can load the actual graphical content ( Comic Book pages ) into the Active Pictures as you turn the Sheets.
- Optionally the User can chose wich Comic Book to read by selecting a directory from Disc ( wich contain the content for a book or many books ).

This way Costumers can purchase Pages or sets of pages ( like a whole comic book ) but need the Main Application to display the Pages.

Display More

That's an awesome idea! But I wouldn't really know how to go about implementing numbers 2 and 3. I guess I've also never used Active Pictures before. These can call up different files or something? And would you be able to do your folder system on the iOS?

Quote from ChrisBurrows

The sub application object is an extension. Download it with extension view and get that from here: Please login to see this link. It sources individual frames from your application and displays them as an object within your current frame. You know you can use the active picture object to load external files. That way, it be all in one frame...

:pacman: :pacdot::pacdot::pacdot::pacdot:

Ah, cool! Thanks for the help! The more I think about it, the more I think I may just make a single image with 50 comics contained inside. I imagine loading external applications is probably more resource intensive, and since this is for iOS I need to minimize resource consumption.

Quote from nivram

Sub-applications would be closer.

Marv

Is that possible? How do I do that?

Quote from KLiK-iT

I don't know if this would work for you,.but how about using an animation? Use it in 32 directions and place each page into a directions. Set the speed to 0 and when the user want's to go to a different page just select that direction. You would only need one frame or level.

That's an interesting idea. If nested applications aren't possible, this is probably what I'll do. Thanks a lot! That'll definitely make things more manageable.

Quote from King_Cool

Create a new Project Instead of a new Application?

Hmm, yeah, I see how you can have multiple game files open at the same time. But is there a way to create a meta-game that can access these files?

Quote from KLiK-iT

Is this a game or a comic book to read?

It's a comic to read. Right now I have it set up so that each level is a comic page that you can either read as a full page or zoom in on and navigate panel by panel. I have a variety of shaped pages, so right now I just programmed how each type of page would operate, and I'm about to the point where I'm going to start importing all the comics from my archive. I want to offer "packs" of like 50 comics in a pack that you can purchase separately in-app. I figured the easiest way to set that up would be to have each pack be a separate game file contained in the main game.

This is a pretty basic question that I can't seem to find an answer to with searches. Is it possible to nest a game file within another game file in MMF2? For some reason I was sure this was possible but now that I need it I can't seem to find info on it. Otherwise, is there simply a way to organize levels? I'm putting the finishing touches on a comic app that's going to have hundreds of levels (a level per page) and if I just have them all unorganized it's going to be a nightmare.

Thanks a lot!

Is the "On mouse click" event different than the "User clicks with left button" event? If so, how do you perform the former? Also, does this mean that accessing a link by pressing a key won't work?

I am attempting to make a comic app based on my webcomic, and I've figured out how I can make a swipe gesture move from one panel to the next. What I'm stuck on is trying to figure out how to make it LOOK like other image apps, where you are dragging the image while you swipe. What I've come up with so far is extremely convoluted, and the best I can do is get the center of the panel to jump to where your finger is and THEN move appropriately, which still doesn't look right. I feel like I'm probably overlooking some simple solution. Any ideas? Thanks!

Ah, I did not realize I had to update the program. Thank you, I will do that tonight!