self.Physics.Movable - Doesn't seem to be working.

Photics

I'm working on another game. Perhaps my third GameSalad game will be the one that makes a lot of money. HA HA... anyway... I'm doing something a bit outside of what I think GameSalad was intended for. I'm planning to have a lot of actors on the screen. I have to use this many to get the interaction that I'm looking for. Yet, they don't always need to be moving. Some actors only need to move when touched.

I've been optimizing my game. One bad decision can have disastrous effects on performance. For example, I'm actually using Gravity over Move or Accelerate. It seems to have dramatically increased frame rates.

Another trick that seems to improve frame rates is to set movement to false if an actor doesn't need it. This is where the problem comes in. Certain actors in my game don't need to move unless they're touched. So, I was trying to toggle the Movable attribute.

I created a rule... if pressed... change self.Physics.Movable to true... otherwise... it should be false. I was thinking this would yield dramatic improvements in performance. However, the GameSalad game seems to ignore this attribute. Well... it will change the attribute... but it doesn't respect it. For example, if I put "self.Physics.Movable" in "display text" it will display "false" or "true". I've watched the words change with my touch... but the actor does not change movement. It either stays on all the time or off all the time, depending on the initial setting.

Is this a bug? Is this intentional?

jonmulcahy

I don't think its possible to alter anything under the physics submenu right now once the gameplay has started.

but don't quote me on that

firemaplegames

mulcahy is correct.. You cannot alter any of the Physics attributes or Graphics attributes as well (tiled, visible, etc...) during runtime.

Photics

I'm figuring the same thing. It just doesn't make sense to have those options available if you can't change them. I tried using Interpolation to alter actor angles, but it wasn't as effective as the rotate to angle option. But unfortunately, interpolation works when movement is disabled and rotation does not.

What's interesting is that you can use constrain to move characters, but you can't use other options. I might be able to use math to trick my way out of this one.

RH

Arggh, I'm glad you asked that, I was wondering why my Friction change wasn't working!

Photics

I managed to use interpolation to get the rotation effect that I wanted. It's not exactly what I imagined, and maybe I could get it exact with more tweaking, but it's still pretty cool for the intended purpose. By doing it this way, the game currently has about 25% improved performance. That's... well... a little bit insane. I'm thinking that most beginners are not going to know to do this. Heh... I think I should finish that GameSalad textbook I'm writing.