'long' scene (wide platform) not possible?

Lykke

I'm working on an iPhone platform adventure game, were the little guy has to walk through some wide levels (landscape).

I can use a bg picture with the width of 1075 and height 674 and make him walk forth and back and jump up and down, without problems in that large area. The screen automatically follows the player.

I want a much larger/wider scene though, where he has to walk continuously, until reaching the 'final' of that level - without loading to new scenes.

I tried to set the width to 8000 but that doesn't chance anything. If I try and place a larger picture in the creator, I'm told it's too large for GS.

Are there a max kb size for picture uploads?
Are there a max page width?

The picture is 800kb

Any suggestions?

Thanks

JohnPapiomitis

the max size for pictures is 1024x1024

you can tile which is under the graphics attributes, or split the bigger images up to smaller pieces to use them

changing the scene size width and height will change the scene size, and putting the control camera behavior in your player actor will allow the camera to follow him

Lykke

Meaning, I continue the scene in scene 2 (for example)?

I did put the control camera on the player already, and yes, the camera is following him on the scene I have now. But I just can't make that scene to last longer than the 1024 wide.

JohnPapiomitis

no you dont continue, you can make the scene as big as you want. It can be 500,000 by 500,000 if you want

the 1024 by 1024 is just for images, meaning if you have a picture thats 2048x2048 you have to split into two images that are 1024x1024 and place them next to each other

also for a large scene if theres a backgroudn you want to cover the whole scene wherver you go, you dont need to make a huge images or put a bunch next to each oterh

you would just need one 480x320 image or whatver and put it on its own layer and uncheck scrollable. and it wil always be there no matter where the camera is

Lykke

Alright. So I did split up my large image into 8 parts. I did also place them all in the image 'box'.

I have image bg 1 placed in the first scene. I can't place anything next to that, because the 'platform' or scene is not wide enough. So, how do I set it to be wide enough for me to place a new bg next to it?

Do I need to make a new scene for each ?

Sorry, if I sound 'blonde' but I started this 2 days ago and searched the forums for answers first, but didn't find any ^^

jonmulcahy

I forget which tab exactly, but one of the tabs next to attributes under scene has a scene sixe option where you can define the sizeof theta splay area

Lykke

Hmm yes, I'm at work now, but believe that is what I was trying to chance. But it hops back again to the 1024 if I fx makes it 2000

beefy_clyro

No you cant be, you must not be changing the actual scene size but more an actors size, a scene can be set to what you want. I got this wrong at the start but there is a scene tab that has the scenes size under it, find that and you can set it to what you want.

Lykke

beefy_clyro said:
No you cant be, you must not be changing the actual scene size but more an actors size, a scene can be set to what you want. I got this wrong at the start but there is a scene tab that has the scenes size under it, find that and you can set it to what you want.

Alright, I will try that out tonight thanks

jonmulcahy

there are two buttons: game and scene

click on scene then click on the attributes section
expand the size part and that's where you can adjust the gameplay area.

I'm working on a level that is 780x1200 right now

Photics

Lykke,

The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook might be useful to you. It has lots of useful information for beginners, so that many big issues can be avoided.

Example... eight 1024x1024 images will crush performance.

BOT uses five 1024x1024 images per scene and that's really pushing it. Without the optimization tricks that experienced GameSalad developers know, such a large game will crawl.

Lykke

Hey Photics, thanks for the reply
Imagine a shooting scene with a running bg. That is also long, right? I don't mind if I have to cut the scenes into smaller pictures, as long as the little guy can run from one end to the other without having to load into a new scene every 1024px ... but perhaps that's not possible at all (after how I read you, but my English is not very well, sorry ).

So - the best way I can do this is to have each bg as a new scene, and then 'live' with the loadings inbetween?

What do you do when you make a shooting game with a spaceship that continues? You make sure the bg is the same or??

Sorry, just trying to find other possibilities - because I don't want a game that crashes or not work optimized. But it is somehow a party pooper regarding the ideas I have for the game ^^

Thanks

Photics

I have created endless scrolling by using a tiled image. Older devices crash when they run out of RAM, which can happen if a lot of large images are being used at once.

There is another method that I have in mind for creating an incredibly large scene, but that's a secret.

Lykke

Photics said:
I have created endless scrolling by using a tiled image. Older devices crash when they run out of RAM, which can happen if a lot of large images are being used at once.

There is another method that I have in mind for creating an incredibly large scene, but that's a secret.

I wont tell ...

Rob2

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tilen/id409199185?mt=12 a free app for cutting up your large images into tiles

edit: be aware that it removes transparency however not normally a problem for backgrounds but for big parallax work it would be a deal breaker.

+1↓

simo103

hi ... apologies if you are already aware of this but ... when you open Gamesalad creator and click the New+ section on the left panel .. you will see a bunch of templates that you can double click. That will open that template on your computer and you can then save. There is a platform one that shows large screen sizes and images.

A different approach and probably used in the shooting type games is the Basic Shoot em Up and Alien Conconquers, both templates are there for you also.

Lastly, you can use the search box in that area for things like 'parallax'. I think there are hundreds of other templates this great community has posted for anyone to use.

Hope that helps.

Lykke

Hey Simo Thanks for your help.
I did actually use one of the templates to help me out with my game. It is very useful. Unfortunately the scene is not as large as the one I wish for. I didn't look through them all, tbh - but I will go on a search-trip tonight and see if there's any goodies to grab

simo103

no problem .... there are a lot of 'tricks' used to conserve memory so once you get into your game be sure to post more questions as the community can save you a lot of headaches.

For example you can use a small image and then specify the actor size as much bigger (if the color pattern is conducive .. ie it doesn't look stretched) and/or use a basic background tiled or not scrollable and then use and reuse certain actors throughout the game ... ie: like a tree or clouds .. they would move out of camera on one side and then move back to come on camera again the other side.

Lykke

Went into the scene and changed the size of the width ... I did it many times before, but I didnt press shift after. I did that now and VUPTI

lol I feel so noobish (I am)

All BG pictures are in place - and it looks great

Thanks for all the help

Lykke

Photics

Danish detected...
http://translate.google.com/#auto|en|VUPTI

As mentioned before, eight large images is a danger. The game will likely load slowly, unless you use the change attribute - self.image trick. Also, the game might lag or crash... unless you're just building a Mac App Store game. If you're targeting the iPhone or iPad, you might want to test your app on an iOS device before proceeding with development.

Also, watch the seams. On iOS devices you might see a line in-between the actors.

mangaroo

seams are a pain, i tend to move the graphics one-two pixel extra then it should be so there is no gap or shimmying of the graphics. might need to rework the art the fit

*assuming u have multiple actors per platform

Photics

mangaroo said:
seams are a pain, i tend to move the graphics one-two pixel extra then it should be so there is no gap or shimmying of the graphics. might need to rework the art the fit

I think if you stick to powers of 2, you can avoid the seam problems. I noticed this while working on BOT. I made a mistake with my slices. I cut a 2048 x 2048 image into 1023 wide instead of 1024. The artwork was then scaled to 1024. That caused a seam. Otherwise, I'm not seeing any issues with seams. Although, the background actors (not counting the one parallax actor) don't move... only the camera. That's another factor.

A lame way of avoiding this problem is by changing the background color of the scene. If the background is mostly blue, then making the scene background blue can help disguise seams.

JPickard

I've been looking for the same thing, and found this in the demos: http://gamesalad.com/game/3280?GSCVersion=0.9.2&tokenUsername=JPickard&token=4a2b6d52a8453e1c5f9f1329d7f1fe5bd020265a922e63a83949b569b0feda07

Lykke

Thanks again all

True, I havent tested it on an ipone yet (can I?)

But in the web version it looks great - and since I started doing this Saturday afternoon, I am pretty proud of what I accomplished already with my lack of skills haha

I look forward to learn and be better.

If it isn't a challenge to make, will it then feel as rewarding?

Thanks

Photics

Lykke said:
True, I havent tested it on an ipone yet (can I?)

If you have an active Apple iPhone Developer registration, you can download the provisioning profile and install the GameSalad Viewer. That will show you the frames per second of your game.

Lykke

Hi Photics, I just registrated as an Apple iPhone Developer and am about to download the Xcode, but that can take some hours

I have to say it works quite fine in the web viewer (in the creator).

Will be fun to see it 'properly'.

Thanks

Photics

On the Mac desktop, GameSalad usually works great. Getting it to run on older iOS devices can be a huge source of frustration.

Photics

On the Desktop, GameSalad usually works great. Getting it to run on older iOS devices can be a huge source of frustration. The trick is learning the optimization tricks and learning the limitations of the hardware/software.

Lykke

Photics said:
On the Mac desktop, GameSalad usually works great. Getting it to run on older iOS devices can be a huge source of frustration.

If I get frustrated I promise to let you know

Photics

Lykke said:
If I get frustrated I promise to let you know

Heh... no no no... I'd likely just point you to The Unofficial GameSalad Textbook. It's great for beginners, as it has lots of useful information for avoiding common GameSalad pitfalls.

Lykke

It's great Photics haha - but still, can I tell you if I get frustrated? Because I'm sure that I will fall into some of those pits anyway.

Learning by doing, and sometimes we burn ourselves