Expression Editor In Change Scene Behavior

dmilinovichiii

I'm getting to the point where I am horribly frustrated every time I go to make a level select menu because of the huge number of levels involved. In a game with only 50 levels, it requires at least 50 change scene behaviors on an actor to manage a scene change for each level. With an expression editor, this number could easily be reduced to 1. Is there a reason that this hasn't been added to GameSalad yet? Or is it there and I just haven't noticed it?

JarrenH

Unfortunatly its not available, and I have no idea why its not supported. Seems it could be a simple fix. Perhaps it hasn't happened because there's always a chance it could reference a non existent scene, and the devs don't want to deal with it.

dmilinovichiii

Unfortunatly its not available, and I have no idea why its not supported. Seems it could be a simple fix. Perhaps it hasn't happened because there's always a chance it could reference a non existent scene, and the devs don't want to deal with it.

It seems as though it would make the change scene behavior far more varied in its functionality. And, if a non existent scene is referenced scene, a simple error message saying just that could appear letting the developer know what happened.

Does anyone know if there are any alternate methods to accomplish this task?

3itg

Easy Fix.
Give us features...
And provide detailed documentation on those features.
At least one person will read it, and the knowledge will be disseminated from there.
Give us rules for a feature... ignore that features rules, your rules using that feature get ignored.
They could even say things like "If you make this common mistake with this feature, it will have this outcome"

I was using expressions to load data from tables dynamically and didnt really think about the fact that my actors self.ID starts with 0, then 1, 2 and so on.
Game loads a black screen if its a 0.
Game loads just fine if its self.ID+1

(Hmm, thats kind of a bad example, but I think I made my point)
Its a simple stupid mistake using tables... value cant be 0, because that doesn't exist.

What would be really cool, if is there was someway for Gamesalad to "read" my code.
Notify users of errors, blank values, unresolvables, infinite loops, "Flipping" Booleans, high process or memory utilization by specific actors...

In other dev software, you usually cant build a project that contains errors.

dmilinovichiii

@SaladStraightShooter
Is there any reason that this couldn't be implemented within the next few releases? It seems like a feature that would unlock a lot of design potential and while I don't understand exactly how GameSalad works, it doesn't seem like it would be complicated to add. If it's not possible, could you tell us why?

3itg

I agree it would unlock a lot of potential...
But I also think the answer to

could you tell us why?

SHOULD be simply...
"Because of #5 on the Joel Test"
Nothing more.

dmilinovichiii

I agree it would unlock a lot of potential...
But I also think the answer to

could you tell us why?

SHOULD be simply...
"Because of #5 on the Joel Test"
Nothing more.

Yes, clearly bug fixes are first, but after, features that give creators more options. Since tables, no updates have come out that give users new possibilities when creating games.

Everything has been about monetization, bug fixes, and minor engine improvements. There are already monetization options, the bug fixes should have been caught before release, and the engine improvements will be a waste of time with the release of Lau Free.

It would be nice to see an update that unlocks new potential. It doesn't have to be big, just small things like an expression editor in the change scene behavior.

tenrdrmer

The reason we don't have it is its not as straightforward on the backend as

Scene1 scene2 etc

They cannot reference your scene name cause of how often you may change it and you may have multiple scenes with the same name.

On the backend all scenes are assigned a unique ID number somewhat at random. So there's no easy simple fix as some have mentioned.

Since its not a quick fix and doesn't stop ones ability to continue creating games this request, which has been made in the past by sous chef and line cooks in through our beta testing doesn't rank very high on the priorities list.

And here's the part that will likely piss some people off.

50 change scene behaviors will still likely be substantially less work than if you has to hand code it yourself.

dmilinovichiii

The reason we don't have it is its not as straightforward on the backend as

Scene1 scene2 etc

They cannot reference your scene name cause of how often you may change it and you may have multiple scenes with the same name.

On the backend all scenes are assigned a unique ID number somewhat at random. So there's no easy simple fix as some have mentioned.

Since its not a quick fix and doesn't stop ones ability to continue creating games this request, which has been made in the past by sous chef and line cooks in through our beta testing doesn't rank very high on the priorities list.

And here's the part that will likely piss some people off.

50 change scene behaviors will still likely be substantially less work than if you has to hand code it yourself.

So theoretically, would it be possible to make the change attribute behavior change to the scene number? For example, say the level select is on level 4 and level 4 is the 6th scene into the game. Could you say

change scene to (selected level + 2)

where the scene changed to is the ID number you mentioned? What I'm asking is if it is a feature that could potentially be added in a future update or if it is currently impossible?

JarrenH

I don't understand what makes it so complex, you have to reference a scene from a drop down menu right now, why can't you reference it with attributes or expressions? Just simply prevent us from having scenes with duplicate names (should never have been an option in the first place), and add an expression editor and we should be good to go!

And yes, @tenrdrmer, that last bit does piss me off! %-( I spent 15-20 minutes configuring each and every case for all 60 of my levels. I could have done the same thing with one behavior. It also now takes 30 seconds to 1 minute when ever I open up that actor, breaking my workflow... I still have no idea how manual doing is less work.

dmilinovichiii

I don't understand what makes it so complex, you have to reference a scene from a drop down menu right now, why can't you reference it with attributes or expressions? Just simply prevent us from having scenes with duplicate names (should never have been an option in the first place), and add an expression editor and we should be good to go!

I think the part that is so hard is that each scene is given a number. For example, in the program file, the fourth game in the scene is called 4.xml in the scene file. A way around this could be to check the scene's name in the xml file and use that for setting the next scene. And I completely agree with you that there should be no duplicate names for scenes or for actors.

tenrdrmer

It's a rando number guys its not 1-10 thats just the xml files.

I just made a new project a created 5 scenes. then open the package contents to check the scene ids

1.xml = id269551
2.xml = id178990
3.xml = id538986
4.xml = id505131
5.xml = id443197

These numbers are assigned so that no matter what you name them or how you resort the scenes in the preview window it will not mess up any change scene behaviors into seeing the wrong scene etc… If you move the scenes around in the creator the file names change as well. so hopefully you can see how moving just one scene would completely bork your entire system if the change scene behaviors where based on the name of the xml file.

and yes logically there should not be any duplicate names for scenes but then again it happens. And like I said before and even @saladstraightshooter has said in other threads. they have to prioritize feature requests and bug fixes etc… So right now if it ain't broke its not going to be getting much if any of a fix. Yes it can be better and I hope they do it sometime in the future. I have asked for the same feature over a year ago. but you have to be willing to step back and look at the big picture. yes this would save you time. but right now theres kinda busy with a bunch of people claiming the latest update ruined their games. Which do you think they are going to see as a higher priority???

dmilinovichiii

@tenrdrmer
Thanks for the explanation. I still think that it would be a very valuable feature that could probably be added with some changes, but I do see your point. So for now, fingers crossed that it will be added in an update.