Posts by wiggy

Ahh, yup, forgot to put in the cleanup for the animation! Thanks Pixelthief for explaining the reason behind it and not just giving the fix, that helps me understand Fusion much more. I never knew there was a object limitation, or that it I could set it per frame, pretty cool. :O

That fixed the problem, thanks again!

Interesting, I made a bit of progress... but I don't know how to fix it yet.

If I change the smoke effect I want from the "trail" active object to another one like "smokey.1", then it works... Hmm, this means something is wrong with the "trail" active object, but the only difference (besides how it looks) is that trail has 4 frames and the smokey.1 has only 1 frame.

I thought a four frame of smoke would look better than just 1... am I limited or did I do something wrong here? :o

Oops, I forgot to post MFA. Simply activate and deactivate line 8 to see what I mean.

Let me know, thanks!

Please login to see this link.

Wiggy

Hey CT,

After commenting out line by line, I finally figured out where the bug is, but not why the bug exists. I have a frame, missile objects are randomly created (every 1.5 seconds) at the top of the screen and fall to the ground. When I commented out the line that created a "smoke" active object at the missiles hotspot every 00"-05, the frame works without a glitch.

The event line has only that entry:
+ Every 00"-05
- Create object "smoke" at (0,0) from "missile"

The bug (when this line is active) is that random missiles will disappear, some additional missiles will appear then disappear, all with random locations, as well as other objects doing this as well.

Why would a simple create object do this? Ideas?

Thanks!

Wiggy

Pretty simple, I went with a new animation, pretty cool. Now I don't need different actives for every weapon type... But now a new issue. The problem now is that all the projectiles (missile, bullet, laser, etc.) all have the same speed. I'm going to try and make a global or perhaps an alterable variable for the "projectile".

Am I on the right track to change the projectiles speed (or other attributes)?

Ziplock / King_Cool

I've been looking at this and I think I got it, once it works I'll let ya know which way I went. Thanks again for the responses, this is just what I needed... a starting point !

Hey CT,

I'm looking for a Contra like (NES) example of weapon / sprite switching. Basically, if the player collides with an active box "S", they get shot gun, "L", laser, etc. and thus the active the shoot is now either a bullet or a laser or a whatever else I come up with.

I found an example by popcorn Please login to see this link. that is close, however, his example doesn't do the one thing I need to figure out: which is switching the weapon / sprite. In his example, its the same bullet / sprite being used in all three weapon types. I'd like to change the actual active "bullet" sprite / weapon itself that's being fired. In this case, if they pick up an "L", the sprite is now a long blue line (or whatever I make) that represents a laser shot, etc.

I currently have code to shoot one type of active, preferably, I'd like to reuse that code for any other weapon type that the player may get.

Hope that makes sense,

Thanks!

Wiggy

@j22002dk
Light Bulb!! Your second "cleaner" mfa where you took out the Identifier and removed the Controller object all together made so much more sense and was more straight forward. I'm not sure I see the use of the internal flag in the first example now after looking at the new code though. It seems redundant to "SelectedTurret" flag, is that accurate? (not trying to pick on your code, I know it was quick and dirty, just trying to understand).

The solution for deselecting was what I thought it might be, basically coding for the negative, where you set an event based on when it is NOT selected. I was stuck trying to figure out how to select AND unselect the other turrets in one condition.... lol
Many thanks again for the explanations and the example!

schrodinger
Yeah, I thought a lot about it today and yesterday, I'm going to retro it in there. It's going to be painful, but it will be worth it and make the code more reusable, more readable and more easily debugged if I have an issue, etc.

Thanks again gang, I'm sure I'll be on here again soon to discuss another wall head banging issue soon! ;D

Wiggy

I've also been playing around with the example "dynamicqualifier" that you gave me. I made some changes to facilitate selecting the turret, but I'm not able to "unselect".

This is one of the issues I had with only having a single object on the frame. What happens is that while I am now able to create more than one turret, and with behaviors change the look of one to indicate which one is selected (which is where the missile will fire from), I'm not able to unselect the previous turrets.

Ideas?

I've attached what I've done so far to the example mfa you sent.

Thanks!

Wiggy

Please login to see this attachment.

hey guys, sorry to take so long to respond.

schrodinger
Did I solve my turret issues?

Yes and no... After talking about it back and forth with jn2002dk, I understand what he means and how I SHOULD have done it...
What I've been struggling with the last couple of days is how to retro this solution back into my code.

Here is an analogy. I'm nearly finished building a house, all that's left is paint and carpeting. Then the inspector comes along and says "hey, you remembered to put the plumbing into all the bathrooms and kitchens right?" So I'm looking at my nearly finished house and thinking maybe I can make the pipes run along the floor board or along the ceiling and make it work... or tear all the walls out and redo it.

Remember this is my first game that I'm doing from start to finish. The purpose was to make a few small games to learn from any roadblocks I would hit and be able to move on. However this roadblock is a reconstruction almost and I'm torn between just "making it work" somehow and "putting in the elegant solution". >:D But I also know I won't "learn" it unless I do it, so I'm thinking I have to start over because I have too many conditions that would be affected by this change.

Arg... lol

Wiggy

Many many thanks! Your responses are very well laid out and you answered my questions directly and explained it VERY good!

This part was a big LBM (light bulb moment) for me:

Quote

What i meant by the controller object was an active object whose only purpose is as a code and variable container

I always wondered about how to do something like that, and it makes sense. I just assumed that that's what globals were for, so I never thought of using an object to store values. Is it just easier or faster, or? Either way, I get how that works now
So the light bulb works now, haha. It turns on from time to time... mostly when I read your last post. Putting it into practice is still a bit shaky. I went back to my OP question and I'm thinking.. Okay how do behaviors help me make events for a dynamic list of active objects in a qualifier again? lol... I'll have to keep re-reading this post and your responses to really get it. The best analogy is that I wanted to get help with my TV remote, and you basically gave me a thick book that describes how to setup your tv for voice activation. XD

No worries about the quick and dirty, the fact that you posted an example mfa at all is above and beyond, so many thanks again. I saw the golf game you had on the site, pretty sweet, I liked how the physics of the ball on the hills worked.

Anyways, thanks again, I think... I hope, that I got it

Wiggy

jn2002dk Well many thanks for the explanations! This opens up and changes the way I look at coding a game. I just came across "grouping of events" last month now this... its almost like I need to recode my whole application because its so hard to retro it in there, lol.

There were two things you said that I wanted to clarify if you don't mind:

Quote

... you could place all that code in a controller object, an active whose only purpose was to contain code, and then simply copy paste that object into each frame, saving you a lot of time

<sigh> I thought I understood your example until you said that, lol...especially when I went back and looked at it again X) Sorry, I'm just not getting the "light bulb" moment where its like ooooooohhhhhh, I get it, haha. Anyway here is where I'm still a little fumbling:

I guess the first thing is the "controller object". Is it an Active object you named "controller", or is it a specific kind of object called "Controller Object" because I don't see it as a type of object I can insert on the frame although it does have the same icon as an active... The reason I ask is because the comment I quoted above seems to mean that I can put code in the controller object (and there was none but there was code under the properties of the turret). Not trying to nitpick, I'm just confused and trying to understand. The relationship between the turret and the controller object is confusing to me now because I don't see any behaviors for the controller object, so when I see the controller object change an internal flag, I'm thinking...how did it do that, and how does it know what flag to change? I thought the behavior code in the turret did all that, so I'm confused why we need the controller object, make sense?

The second one is this part:

Quote

...the biggest one being you can't use qualifiers inside a behavior. However, you can work around this using variables or flags

This one was a mind blower too because I couldn't see how that would be possible. Example steps:
1) I created two active objects, named "turret1" and "turret2".
2) Then I put both turrets in a qualifier called "arms".
3) Then I go into turret1 and create events in the behavior section.
Result, is now I have two objects in the same qualifier with behavior events

So my confusion comes when I read your comment because I accomplished assigning the qualifiers in step 2 before I assigned behaviors.... again sorry, but the light bulb is blown right now I'm not getting it, so any additional help is greatly appreciated. I just really want to know this so that I can use it effectively.

Thanks!

Wiggy

Hmm, that's both awesome and mind blowing... :O

I've only been using CT Fusion for like a few months and I've never noticed the "behavior" property under an active object (even though I've used qualifiers lol).
My mind is racing with questions now. I mean, I see behaviors and when I clicked into it, it opened up an event editor. So for me to implement this, I'd need to understand a bit more if you don't mind.
And how come choco break and all the other beginner tutorials never talked about this awesome feature? lol...

So here goes:
1) In general, why use a behavior instead of an event list condition? aka, is it possible to put the turret's "behavior events" into the frame events?
2) Is the relationship between a behavior to active object the same as event list to a frame ?
3) Are the events in a behavior checked once per frame the same as events?
4) What order are the behaviors checked in reference to the frame? Is it event list first, then behaviors, or behaviors then event list?

Sorry for the long list, I'm just trying to learn this new feature that was used to eloquently solve the problem. I'm amazed at it and if I understand it, I can put it into practice and start using it from now on.

Thanks!

Wiggy

Hey gang,

King_Cool, close, except I have an and condition:

You press 'A' to select Turret A ( making Turret B completly inactive, and making Turret A completely active )
You press 'B' to select Turret B ( making Turret A completly inactive, and making Turret B completely active )

And yes, once I get this working, I'd like to do "turret upgrades".

jn2002dk
Hmm... I see what you did, but I'm really trying to wrap my head around what is going on, lol. Where is the mind blown emote?
The part that is confusing is the identifier (alterable value). I see how you are adding 1 to it, so that each time the loop is called, the next turret will get a new value. But several questions:

1. "identifier" is not referenced during the turret selection. During that part its setting the internal flags to on or off for flag 0 or 1 on the controller object...explain, lol?
2. Is "identifier" the same thing as the controller object? I'm asking because it seems that internal flag 0 is how you are referencing identifier 1 (for turret 1)?
3. The special condition column events don't reference the identifier or the controller... :o It is setting the global variable "Selected Turret" to a value... how is that used in selecting a turret?

Sorry for the questions, but it REALLY helps me to understand your solution rather than just copy / paste it and say thanks

[Edit]
Wait... I clicked around and discovered a few things.

--Identifier is an alterable value for the turret.
--IdentifierAdd is a global variable
Ahhh... Since you cannot change an alterable value for an object during creation, you are setting it to a global variable that can, correct?

So that answers #2... #1 and #3 still apply because I don't see how you "selected turret 1" by referencing the global variable "Selected Turret". I would assume you would have to set the internal flag value of the qualifier (arms) that the turrets belong, equal to the identifier. Please help

Thanks!

wiggy

Hey Gamer,

What you are looking for is a global variable! Create a global variable and set it to zero. On frame 1 where the user shoots the item, increment the count on the global variable. Then on frame 2 or any other frame, just set (on frame start or whatever) the counter equal to the global variable.

Hmm, the solution is not quite working. Its my fault really, I didn't explain my situation completely. I am using a qualifier group for my turrets, AND I'm using it for turret "selection" so the missile knows where to spawn from. So if the player hits "A" it select turret 1, and "D" for turret 2. (See attachments). So the problem I have with using this solution is that I cannot code turret selection because this solution only has one object listed in the Event Editor. Hope that makes sense... lol

Still trying to figure out the best way to do this, but any feed back is greatly welcomed!

Thanks!

Wiggy

jn2002dk, Just now seeing this, looks pretty straight forward. I'll see if I can implement the create turret loop on start of frame, I think that is key.

Hey CTF,

The title question is a bit wordy so I'll break it down into sequence.

In frame one user plays the game shooting missiles from two turrets and they earn cash for killing targets. The two turrets are in the same qualifier group.
Next frame (frame 2) they go to an upgrade shop. I want to give them the ability to purchase and add an additional missile turret to that qualifier group. (Tracked with a global value "turret_purchased" default to 0)
Next frame (frame 3) What if they didn't purchase the extra turret and purchased something else (5 other upgrades avail right now)?

Thus my question: "How can I code an event for objects being added to a qualifier group "?
I'm currently coding the selection / firing of a missile from the turrets easily (see attached png).

But now I'm a little confused how to code / activate the additional missile turret if it was purchased. I can make the turret visible at start of frame if turret_purchased = 1, but then I'm stuck on how to control whether or not its added to the qualifier group.
I'm hoping I made this really hard and its something easy, haha. Thoughts?Please login to see this attachment.

Thanks!

wiggy

Yup, I'm with ya KZ. Wait till you have more flesh on the bones. Nothing like showing something that isn't fully done and getting negative feedback because so many things don't work or are buggy. Just keep at it and release a beta in a year or so, remember a good game takes patience.

Looks pretty cool, well done!