Actor Groups & String Operations
Auric
Member Posts: 35
I've been working with GameSalad for a few days now (and I'll be pushing out my first app in a few weeks). It's a solid tool, but it needs some more refinement. The a few things that I would desire are:
1. Actor Groups: Being able to group a set of actors and then use rules against the group would allow for easier level layouts, especially if those levels have random elements (like a random dungeon generator). This would allow the layout and walls and such to be linked together.
2. String Operations: And this came to me out of the simple need to parse something resembling an array. If I had a string that was 'abddcabe' I could parse through the string and read each character as a data element. This is an over simplification but I think you get my drift.
3. Collision Masks: Not as heavy as an entire object but would allow for layouts to have very detailed collision detection without the need from an entire group of objects. Or even a polygonal object where you could make non-rectangular masks.
I've also noticed that replicated objects to not trigger any events (such as collisions).
Cheers,
Auric
1. Actor Groups: Being able to group a set of actors and then use rules against the group would allow for easier level layouts, especially if those levels have random elements (like a random dungeon generator). This would allow the layout and walls and such to be linked together.
2. String Operations: And this came to me out of the simple need to parse something resembling an array. If I had a string that was 'abddcabe' I could parse through the string and read each character as a data element. This is an over simplification but I think you get my drift.
3. Collision Masks: Not as heavy as an entire object but would allow for layouts to have very detailed collision detection without the need from an entire group of objects. Or even a polygonal object where you could make non-rectangular masks.
I've also noticed that replicated objects to not trigger any events (such as collisions).
Cheers,
Auric
Comments
Actually, you can sort of kludge this together by having position/orientation "set attributes" in an actor that work off a custom attribute pair for (sub) scene start x and y. You would need to do this for each actor in that scene but once the initial scene is setup and you understand the offsets of said scene (for use within the (sub) scene custom attributes) it could cut down on the work needed to setup that scene each time. You could even then add an additional actor to be the scene spawner to reduce the work even further (i.e. have the spawner do the initial positioning for you). You would definately need to name the "My Behavior" elements appropriately to keep track of them, such as:
sub-scene_1-tree_01
sub-scene_1-wall_01
sub-scene_1-wall_xx..
...etc...
But, yeah, I agree, a "prefab" feature would be nice to have!