A warm Hello with a few questions

MaveriKMaveriK Member Posts: 2
edited November -1 in Introductions
Well hello everyone,

My name is Travis, and I've just recently stumbled into the world of Iphone App development. After a day or so of searching and learning, I stumbled upon Gamesalad, and am liking what I see. I have a little game design experience with programs such as RPG Maker XP, VX and another game design software known as Realm Crafter. So the drag and drop architecture of GS suites me just fine.

Now that the introduction is out of the way, I guess I'll start hitting with some questions.

1) I can consider myself a little blessed because my Wife just graduated in May with her Art degree, AND loves the thought of potentially making art for games that I'm developing. My main question thou is: What's going to be the best graphic design tool for making images for the game. We already have Adobe CS5 Design Suite (because of her school) so she has access to Illustrator and photoshop. Just wondering if there is a more "Game" centric program that most people use, or if most just rely on PS, Illustrator, and 3ds Max.

2) Where are people finding free to use sounds. I have a buddy who makes music that wants to help, but I'd like to at least have a pallet of base sounds (sword clinks, explosions, etc... etc...) so he can focus more on game music than the small things. All though, if need be, he can make those sounds too...just figured I'd ask.

3) I know that GS doesn't have a space for custom coding (Hint hint developers....this would be an awesome feature.... for an example, see RPG Maker where you add your own Ruby coding) and as such, I will probably use Corona SDK as well (once I learn it and become proficient with it). Now I know I can directly use Corona with GS, because GS doesn't show the source files, but is there anyway to "finish" a project with GS, decompile, then add custom code, or use Corona. I understand the splash screen will need to stay intact (like duh, obviously.... besides, who wouldn't support such an awesome app that is FREE! A little splash screen doesn't hurt anyone). Not sure if GS produces apps this way or not. Might be talking ahead of myself here.

4) What is the general consensus as far as using Rules from other games? For example: The basic platform game already has a good rule system set up to handle movements. Is it considered a big "No-no" to copy this rule set into a new game? I'd imagine not, because it's acting like a SDK kit would, but just wanting to make sure.

5) While on the subject of movement: I notice a lot of the movement based rules do something like: If user input = "down" then make character crouch. Well how does this translate to an iphone that doesn't have a down key? I'm assuming that that movement rule is only there while it's being published to the web, and then before you put it into the app store, you change it to "Iphone" type controls OR you make an on-screen controller and assign the buttons to the controller.

Anyways, I'm going to stop the questions there as I go ahead and watch some tutorials and draw up a white board. I can see this should be a fun few weeks/months/years. Hopefully I'm on to something here, and it grows into a nice hobby for me. (The money would just be an added bonus...probably spent on more design tools or stuff spent for designing lol).

Cheers,
Travis

Comments

  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    Welcome Travis,
    I'm sorry you seem to have been missed on your hello. I think there were some web site issues earlier mucking things up.

    To answer your questions

    1) those you mentioned are great for art most people use illustrator, pixelmator, Gimp, Photoshop, etc. Just what ever is to yo liking. Gimp is free and also www.sumopaint.com is a good one to have in your arsenal. it is also free

    2) If you look in the wiki section there is an area on resources and I believe some free sounds are in there. Also a past user created a list here. http://techority.com/2010/10/08/free-resources-for-app-developers/

    3) No if you you mess with the .app file you get back from GameSalad servers it will corupt it and itune will not accept it.

    4) because it is all drag and drop it would be impossible to not duplicate rules as you go along. The templates that are provided by game salad as well as any other template available for download which was posted by other users is okay to use the rules and such. Just do' t use any art that is in the template unless specifically Okayed by the person who submitted it and don't copy level designs if the template has that. Beware though some call on attributes that have been created as custom attributes so keep that in mind for debugging if a rule doesn't work once copied. ( On a side note there is an awesome tool that has been developed by one of the users here that mergers projects seamlessly so you don't have an issue when copying rules and stuff.)

    5) on the movement it takes some getting used to the different rules because you can make games for mac which use keyboard and iOS which use touches. generally you can use mouse buttons and touching interchangeably however if you assign a rule to be trigger by a keyboard key it will not function on the iDevice. You will get the hang of that as you learn.

    Again Welcome and we look forward to seeing what you produce. This community is generally very helpful so if you have any questions just ask.

    Please also read the rules and guidelines sticky on the main page. It has some good information about using the forum.

    Thanks
    Aaron
  • JohnPapiomitisJohnPapiomitis Member Posts: 6,256
    Hello and welcome :)
  • quantumsheepquantumsheep Member Posts: 8,188
    Firstly, welcome Travis! Or should I say 'Maverik' (you can be my wingman anytime etc!)

    I'll try and answer your questions below:
    MaveriK said:

    1) I can consider myself a little blessed because my Wife just graduated in May with her Art degree, AND loves the thought of potentially making art for games that I'm developing. My main question thou is: What's going to be the best graphic design tool for making images for the game. We already have Adobe CS5 Design Suite (because of her school) so she has access to Illustrator and photoshop. Just wondering if there is a more "Game" centric program that most people use, or if most just rely on PS, Illustrator, and 3ds Max.

    I think that's great that you have a great source of artwork! I think you'll be fine using illustrator and photoshop. I'm not an artist, but I think if you do your artwork in illustrator, it'll help when it comes to resizing for iPad/Retina display stuff.
    I personally use a range of programs - Art Text is great for menus and things. And Pixelmator's great for general stuff (though you already use PS and Illustrator - which is ideal I think).
    MaveriK said:
    2) Where are people finding free to use sounds. I have a buddy who makes music that wants to help, but I'd like to at least have a pallet of base sounds (sword clinks, explosions, etc... etc...) so he can focus more on game music than the small things. All though, if need be, he can make those sounds too...just figured I'd ask.

    For sound effects I generally use CFXR which you can find here: http://thirdcog.eu/apps/cfxr
    Music wise a lot of people use Kevin Mcleod - you can find his (hundreds!) of free music files here:
    http://incompetech.com/
    It's worth going through them as much as possible, and there's a massive range of tracks there. I used his music on Attack of the Kraken (there's a free LITE version on the app store if you want to take a listen)
    MaveriK said:
    3) I know that GS doesn't have a space for custom coding (Hint hint developers....this would be an awesome feature.... for an example, see RPG Maker where you add your own Ruby coding) and as such, I will probably use Corona SDK as well (once I learn it and become proficient with it). Now I know I can directly use Corona with GS, because GS doesn't show the source files, but is there anyway to "finish" a project with GS, decompile, then add custom code, or use Corona. I understand the splash screen will need to stay intact (like duh, obviously.... besides, who wouldn't support such an awesome app that is FREE! A little splash screen doesn't hurt anyone). Not sure if GS produces apps this way or not. Might be talking ahead of myself here.

    If you could do that, I'd be doing it! Though it would mean that GS would go out of business very quickly. So, no, you can't do that!
    MaveriK said:
    4) What is the general consensus as far as using Rules from other games? For example: The basic platform game already has a good rule system set up to handle movements. Is it considered a big "No-no" to copy this rule set into a new game? I'd imagine not, because it's acting like a SDK kit would, but just wanting to make sure.

    I think it's fine to use rules from other games. After all, there's only so many ways to skin a cat, right? What *is* a big no-no is taking artwork from a template and using it in your game (unless it's a bought template and the people selling it have implicitly said that's ok).
    Also, just uploading a template 'as is' as your own work is a big no-no - it seems to be on the rise, unfortunately, but GS have promised to clamp down on this.
    MaveriK said:
    5) While on the subject of movement: I notice a lot of the movement based rules do something like: If user input = "down" then make character crouch. Well how does this translate to an iphone that doesn't have a down key? I'm assuming that that movement rule is only there while it's being published to the web, and then before you put it into the app store, you change it to "Iphone" type controls OR you make an on-screen controller and assign the buttons to the controller.

    Imagine the mouse as a touch input. So if mouse button is 'down' is basically you touching anywhere on a screen.
    If you want to make a button, simply make an actor, put it on-screen, and give it a rule 'if touch is pressed' then 'do something'.

    Anyway, hope that answers your questions, and welcome!

    QS :D

    Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
    Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io

  • tenrdrmertenrdrmer Member, Sous Chef, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 9,934
    quantumsheep said:
    Firstly, welcome Travis! Or should I say 'Maverik' (you can be my wingman anytime etc!)

    I'll try and answer your questions below:

    I think that's great that you have a great source of artwork! I think you'll be fine using illustrator and photoshop. I'm not an artist, but I think if you do your artwork in illustrator, it'll help when it comes to resizing for iPad/Retina display stuff.
    I personally use a range of programs - Art Text is great for menus and things. And Pixelmator's great for general stuff (though you already use PS and Illustrator - which is ideal I think).

    For sound effects I generally use CFXR which you can find here: http://thirdcog.eu/apps/cfxr
    Music wise a lot of people use Kevin Mcleod - you can find his (hundreds!) of free music files here:
    http://incompetech.com/
    It's worth going through them as much as possible, and there's a massive range of tracks there. I used his music on Attack of the Kraken (there's a free LITE version on the app store if you want to take a listen)

    If you could do that, I'd be doing it! Though it would mean that GS would go out of business very quickly. So, no, you can't do that!

    I think it's fine to use rules from other games. After all, there's only so many ways to skin a cat, right? What *is* a big no-no is taking artwork from a template and using it in your game (unless it's a bought template and the people selling it have implicitly said that's ok).
    Also, just uploading a template 'as is' as your own work is a big no-no - it seems to be on the rise, unfortunately, but GS have promised to clamp down on this.

    Imagine the mouse as a touch input. So if mouse button is 'down' is basically you touching anywhere on a screen.
    If you want to make a button, simply make an actor, put it on-screen, and give it a rule 'if touch is pressed' then 'do something'.

    Anyway, hope that answers your questions, and welcome!

    QS :D

    You just always have to out do everyone don't you? :)
  • quantumsheepquantumsheep Member Posts: 8,188
    tenrdrmer said:
    You just always have to out do everyone don't you? :)

    Heh - I actually wrote all that, pressed 'send post', then saw others had already answered! :D

    Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
    Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io

  • MaveriKMaveriK Member Posts: 2
    Thank ya'll,

    For such a warm welcome. I figure I'll have to tell my wife to dust off some old PS books then, lol. And she might start bugging me about buying a drawing tablet again (it's a wonder she doesn't have one yet....)

    I kind of figured the artwork was off limits, just wanted to make sure the rules were not. I figured that with there being only so many ways to arrange the rules (all be it, you could probably do it a thousand ways) that eventually, you'll end up with rules similar to another game. As far as uploading a template as an app: Seems like an immature act of self loathing. Game development is not for the lazy or weak hearted.... either make an app, or don't.....but don't steal (which is what my view on publishing a template is: Stealing) Seems like a waste of the 99$ DEVELOPER fee from apple, lol.

    Any how, I don't want this post being like the massive wall of text like my first, so thank you for your warm welcome and help. If anyone has any more help to chime in, please, by all means do so. I'm always up to having another picture/animation/sound/what ever design program under my belt.

    Cheers,
    Travis
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