I believe you also get access to more forums once you do register, which is nice.
I believe you also get access to more forums once you do register, which is nice.
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Yeah that qualifier problem in behaviors is an extreme oversight which hopefully Clickteam fixes in MMF3. I also hate how animations and alterable value names for other objects imported in the behavior editor doesn't show custom names. Things need to be more modular and this needs to be fixed. Another thing that REALLY annoys me about behaviors is you can't view the events in the list view, just the default event editor layout. (You can double click an event in one line so you can view the order of events and change them, but only that one event, not the entire event editor list).Originally Posted by TheFieryPlumber
I still use behaviors though. It's just so much easier to use them rather than copying your events in every single frame or loading your levels into one frame. If you're heavily using qualifiers then the behavior route isn't going to work well of course. I actually have a project where most everything is set up in one object's behavior for the entire game so I can just use the frame editor as my level layout independent of my events. I didn't feel like making a level editor but I also didn't want to have to worry about editing events for every single frame if I found later I had a bug or problem that needed to be fixed. If you have really complex levels a level editor can be rather complicated. Once you got it fully functional it would be smooth sailing from there perhaps, but it's a lot of work (despite what some people might say here). Sometimes it's more effort than what it's worth.
However, the only reason I'm able to get away with using the behavior for the entire game is because of the type of game it is. I don't really have a need for qualifiers and have a workaround for testing the objects using flags/values.
If you do make a level editor, I would make it as game independent as possible so you could easily use it for any other project you might have. Only thing you'd have to change is the graphics for the objects.
I dunno... I've always felt like it's just easier to make a level editor and keep the game contained in a single frame, instead of trying to work in the frame editor and doing all the behaviors stuff as a workaround. Having a level editor is also just a nice bonus thing you can add to your final game release, for players to use to create their own levels.
Level editors are extremely easy to create... and once you've made one, you'll be really happy that you've made your own little custom creation tool.
I'm not saying MMF2 doesn't have room for improvement with it's editors... but I would never rely on middleman software to have everything I need to make levels for a game. No software can possibly account for every type of game you want to create from your mindgrapes.
I still take issue with the idea a level editor is "extremely easy"... yes a basic editor is extremely easy for a basic game. But when you start working with a ton of things on multiple layers etc. it can get a bit more complicated. It's entirely dependent on the game for the degree of difficulty. I'm not saying it's not worth it or won't make life easier in the long run, but telling someone upfront "oh yeah do that, it's easy" is a bit misleading unless you know what you're doing. I've made level editors before, and for what I was doing it was rather easy. For other projects, I just said to heck with it and used behaviors instead.
The only thing holding behaviors and global events back at all are the things I mentioned above, not being able to use qualifiers, the custom names for values and animations not being present for imported objects, and not being able to use the event list view. If that was fixed, the benefits would equal out. At that point, the only realistic benefits of a level editor would be for allowing players to make their own levels, your own satisfaction, or having a convenient way to create additional levels for your game at a later date without re-compiling your game (just load the external level data files into your game).
Either way, things need to be fixed in MMF3. The appeal of MMF is to make game building fast and easy. The frame editor should be more useful without having to worry about changing your events by going through each frame or having to create your own level editor (or deal with the silly limitations of behaviors and global events). Or even add a way to simplify creating level editors directly within MMF itself.
Multiple layers don't really complicate things much either... It's just loading a game as usual, only one layer at a time. When you boil it down, all a level editor/loader does, is save object data and load it back up. Does the game have an object? What are it's variables? What is it's position? What layer is it on? Save that stuff. On load, see that the object needs to be created, create it at the saved position, on the saved layer, and load in it's variables. Done. Loop through and do the same for the rest. There's really absolutely nothing else to it.
Either way, if a person is making a complicated game, it will be complicated regardless of whether they make a level editor or not. But obviously the degree of difficulty in making the game will play a factor in the degree of difficulty involved in making an editor. If people don't know that, they shouldn't be making such a difficult game in the first place.
But we can both agree that MMF3 should cover the issues MMF2 has. Something similar to Construct 2 would be nice, where event sheets and frames are independent from one another, and you just link frames to whatever event sheets you want them to use.
You know what's wierd?I'm trying to get my purchase of MMF2 on (having a coupon issue at the moment)...
I own GameMaker and got it when it was on a killer deal, while investigating the two tools (MMF2 vs Gamemaker)...
I decided to go with MMF2 because of the forum and creators. The forum has been helpful, friendly and welcoming. It's super cool that the creators (ClickTeam) are still very active, helpful and open.
So, expect in the next few days... my badges to show my ownership. I can't wait to be on the "other side".
I discovered Multimedia Fusion 2 because of Game Maker.
For those who are interested: A few years ago, I was browsing through Let's Plays on Youtube; when I encountered one about a Super Mario Fangame made from Game Maker. Now, it was just a typical fan game, but the person commentating it was not pleased with it. He was beating it left and right with insults and comments about the glitches and the errors almost to a point where the game itself was screaming. It was until the middle of the playthrough, when he mentioned that he too was a game designer and most of the bugs that were in the game could've been easily fixed if the designer used MMF2 instead of Game Maker.
Now in the beginning, I thought in MMF2 you can make games with little programming necessary; that's what lured me in. Now that's still true, but only if the designer just wants to make a game with very little need of quality. I'm not one of those and I really want to make games with a lot of potential; so even though MMF2 is easier to use than Java and C++, I still need to put a lot of focus and knowledge into it.
I just figured something out. What else is different between the behavior event editor and the frame event editor is that multiplayer controls are optional in the behavior event editor but only the one player appears as an option in the frame event editor.
Is there any way to include multiplayer commands in the frame event editor?
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