Ad Hoc First Test Promising.... Have Some Questions For Tweaking
YoRooster
Member Posts: 159
Hi guys!
I uploaded and tested my first ad hoc couple days ago (without GS Viewer) and to my relief the friggin thing works!!! PAAAAARTAY!
Naturally there is a couple of little bugs that need ironing out but I thought this might be a good time to ask you good people a question or two before I get started...
The first thing I notice is one of my actors is meant to run a short animation as he appears on the screen as soon as the scene starts. However when it runs it's a bit skittish and doesn't appear to run it in the correct sequence. I can only assume that since most of my actors have "preload art" unchecked that I am trying to introduce the animation too soon before the images have a chance to load to memory. Would that be right? If so I could solve this by simply adding a small timer trigger, delaying the animation for a second and allowing the art to load. Would that be the most logical step? Or has anyone had any previous experience and maybe just switching on "preload art" does the trick?
Also a similar issue due to these short loading periods, there are some logo elements that are meant to slide into view as soon as the scene starts. They are not animated but by the time the scene loads my elements are already in position. It's an interpolate movement but this tells me that despite the load wheel and the short pause on screen, the attribute has already begun it's sequence in the background.
This also goes for some actors that don't appear to be following their correct path (back and forth action based on the more reliable startTime rule). It appears the loading of assets for each scene interrupts the timers causing them to start a bit later.
I can only assume the best method round these issues is to create a short delay. What do you think?
Can't wait to show you guys this game!
Thanks,
Dan
I uploaded and tested my first ad hoc couple days ago (without GS Viewer) and to my relief the friggin thing works!!! PAAAAARTAY!
Naturally there is a couple of little bugs that need ironing out but I thought this might be a good time to ask you good people a question or two before I get started...
The first thing I notice is one of my actors is meant to run a short animation as he appears on the screen as soon as the scene starts. However when it runs it's a bit skittish and doesn't appear to run it in the correct sequence. I can only assume that since most of my actors have "preload art" unchecked that I am trying to introduce the animation too soon before the images have a chance to load to memory. Would that be right? If so I could solve this by simply adding a small timer trigger, delaying the animation for a second and allowing the art to load. Would that be the most logical step? Or has anyone had any previous experience and maybe just switching on "preload art" does the trick?
Also a similar issue due to these short loading periods, there are some logo elements that are meant to slide into view as soon as the scene starts. They are not animated but by the time the scene loads my elements are already in position. It's an interpolate movement but this tells me that despite the load wheel and the short pause on screen, the attribute has already begun it's sequence in the background.
This also goes for some actors that don't appear to be following their correct path (back and forth action based on the more reliable startTime rule). It appears the loading of assets for each scene interrupts the timers causing them to start a bit later.
I can only assume the best method round these issues is to create a short delay. What do you think?
Can't wait to show you guys this game!
Thanks,
Dan
Best Answer
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part12studios Posts: 620
hey so about your animation issue.. this is a quirk in GS that i struggled with as well.
The issue is that if you drag/drop a bunch of frames into gamesalad it does NOT keep the frames in order.. so what happens is then you think.. i'll drag the whole lot in.. then drag the whole lot over to the animation behavior.. no dice.
To insure your animations play correctly you must drag each frame of animation into the graphic screen one at a time in order.. this can be and is tedious especially if you have lots of animations..
Someone else might know a better way, but in my experience, GS or perhaps how OSX cues up numerous file selections.. i think it might be possible to experiment with the order of how you select to help, but i gave up and just do it manually most of the time because it works.
also with the preload art. i don't think that's a problem, but it could be. i preload everything all the time as it is the default. you might want to experiment with that if you haven't already. i favor performance in game over load times being shortened.. but that's just me.
Thanks
Caleb
Answers
I'll try out what you suggest later and let you know when I compile another ad hoc. I usually do exactly that but I've been working on this app quite a while now so I may have dragged all the images in at once as you said. The animation issue occurs in the GS viewer too on occasion, but if I quickly restart that level the animation would appear to run fine. At least I can see straight away on the viewer if it appears to solve the problem. Unfortunately it happens every time on the ad hoc making me think it's a memory issue. I'll try selecting preload art as well to see if that makes a difference.
Still not sure why my enemy actors aren't following their path back-and-forth correctly (based on the startTime rule) but I'm confident adding a delay timer would solve that.
Thanks for the advice!