Pleaaaaseeee let us change the loading wheel. Ideally I'd like to upload frames that the load wheel would loop through. I'm SURE it cant be that hard to do. @codewizard, can that be done?
@CodeMonkey Thank you very much! I don't even mind load times; people are used to them. I'd just love having full control over the design process. Thanks for listening. - Jake
Loading times / solid garbage collection are the top of my wishlist as it would allow us to build much bigger scenes/worlds for the player. Also making the expression editor line be more responsive: why can't I just type my whole variable name into it and it finds it to select a la spotlight in apple? I have made games with hundreds of attributes and it only goes to your first or second keystroke to highlight it. If we could type in attributes and filenames into it and allow for image files, sound files, and attributes all available as quick as you could type, it would help a lot when doing repetitive number switching, using tables for sound, debugging, make the tool generally more efficient for people who could benefit from a more text code system while keeping the drag/drop/select mouse controls. These are just thoughts to keep in mind for the future, as I agree with everyone loading time needs to be the first to get fixed without causing our games to crash.
@CodeWizard I think the same as many here do. It's MUCH better to improve/optimize the creator itself than adding more new features! Please work more at the creator than on new features!! After that you can work at the rest My thoughts:
- Multiple actor selecting and PLEASE let us make folders in the actor and in the image section!!! - let us color the rules who are important or so, that would be great. (@quatumsheep) - custom loading bar/wheel/etc. - FONTS!!! It's annoying to make an image for every text because GS fonts don't look professional... - Separate window for the main/scene attributes - timer optimisation. I made a metronome-app with GS in the past and the timers don't work very precisely. - X,Y coordinates directly in the scene editor (that we don't have to go in the actor to edit them) and round them to whole numbers (115.4 to 115).
EDIT: I think the GS creator has problems with big projects. I worked in the past months at a really big project with very big tables. I don't know if the creator has problems with big tables or with big projects. I think it's the big tables that make problems. But this has not a very high priority because i think there are not many people that work with very big tables...
I know many of them are mentioned before in this thred but they are the important ones for me! --- Benjamin
Loading wheel is a must..... It's so ugly... Would love native-code export for pro-users with the new engine, Or at least native code input for adding your own features (for those that know how) API input
First off, @CodeWizard, you do seem very awesome. You're a big reason I had enough faith to buy the PRO license again. Rock on.
Customizing & additions to Creator interface - Custom loading wheel would be great for pro users, we deserve that - .self attributes absent in a new actor to which code is copied created automatically like someone said - Fonts!!!! - Custom collision boxes. If you cannot do custom *shapes* then at least allow us to for example make a rectangle or square have a different collision shape. That way I can make a graphic with glow, for example, with the "glow" registering a hit. (constraining actors to each other for this such kills performance)
Actors & interface small fixes with huge work flow benefits... - In actor list, when I hit a letter, please let it jump the first actor with that letter. - Folders for actors in the actors list AND/OR if I select a group of actors by selecting a tag, please don't kill my view after I went into an actor. Currently I select tag "enemies", I click an enemy, then I come back and the list is back at all actors. - Save scrolling position after viewing actor as well. - Save the tool area size. If I drag it to the right so I have more actors per column, it doesn't save after viewing an actor. - Snapping and coordinates for actors in creator (whole numbers) - Multiple actor selection and dragging - Add a custom zoom in creator view!! Very annoying when working on iPad and not being able to see the full screen...
Important logic fixes/additions/readability - Fix move to behavior: it's erratic. Sometimes shoots beyond target, stops working etc. - Fix interpolate - it's not very precise? - Fix timers: inaccurate and too performance heavy? - Change attribute to/constrain to code block have a longer field when *not selected*. this way if you have quite a bit of code in there, you can read it without opening it. - Change "view for code" - remove the blocks and just show "naked" code in whatever form it would reveal itself, instead of the blocks. Allow user to scroll through it, and make some parts necessary for the structure (that creates the "blocks") greyed out if necessary.
Would be cool... - Allow for a change of attribute type + if you change a boolean to integer, for example, have something like change all "true" to 1 and change all "false" to 0? - Attribute substitution. In other words: All references to attribute X, will now reference to attribute Y.
The things mentioned above regarding the interface, by the way, are exactly why (I think) many people feel that GameSalad is not having their priorities straight. The interface stuff takes very little time to fix but after 3 years is still not done. Major "what the hell?" factor for new users, I think. When working on a medium to big sized projects, these things become VERY frustrating. It takes a while to find actor, it takes a while to load... you try to sort actors/change interface, and after you make changes to the actor, boom... interface back to default. - Argh! -
Sure, why not make it a free for all? I think we've got some clear priorities on what performance optimizations are needed. And, it's definitely arguable that some of the proposed improvements are optimizations of the workflow, etc. Have at it!
The ability for spawned actors to be spawned to a layer of your choice. This would open up a whole new world of possibilities, pseudo-2D/3D game environments would become viable, they are possible now but with a lot of additional behind-the-scenes stuff going on.
@BBEnk If you're expecting everything and the kitchen sink in the next update then you'll be disappointed.
If, instead, you're expecting iterative improvements to the tool and engine then you'll get what you expect!
I just want to see something that actually helps make my game better or easier. funny the last thing I remember that really helped me was the image flip and that been awhile.
Don't get me wrong Gamesalad has always been awesome.
While we're at it, can we make sure the Windows Creator doesn't fall too far behind? I understand that it may not stay step for step with the Mac Creator, I just don't want to see it fall by the wayside.
I have access to both Mac & PC, but I definitely prefer using my PC.
Ability to import images as an animation sequence. Show them in the viewer as a stacked set of images, count of images on corner of the stack, double click to open stack of images to resort if needed, keep images (stack) in order so when we use them in behavior animate we don't have to manually reset the images.
I have a question @CodeWizard what is the feasibility of dynamic layers arriving anytime soon? As in, the ability to have actors shift layer order based on rules. Such as, the actor with the lowest Y position would be in the topmost layer. This would be a great tool for simulating 3d effects and making isometric games.
@CodeWizard I have a question about how GS/Lua/Xcode translates images. From my own testing it appears that an image regardless of the color bit depth/optimization settings takes the same amount of ram. I tested this by creating 3 images, one transparent .png, one monochromatic single bit depth, and one with a ton of information completely uncompressed 32bit color depth. Created 10 actors per scene, 3 scenes and tested memory usage vs each other. All are the same size of2048x2048. It is exactly the same amount of usage for all of the images in all of the scenes. I also tested this in a real project by converting several scenes image and all of the main actors images to lower bit depth/files size images, same results. Is this because xcode is converting these to cgbi(?) format and doesn't pay attention to the optimizations? Does this also apply for files size on disk? Is this something that can be bypassed?
And as a secondary question, if it is converting to the maximum settings per image because of this, does it mean it doubled for the 10.2 update in the same fashion variables did?
And lastly, even after converting almost all real attributes to integer and cleaning my code up for a week i'm still experiencing crashes. Support has suggested I reduce project size/image size after testing it, but based on my tests this is a null point. I know ways that memory reduction could be achieved with features, and it looks like you and others have covered some (spriter plugin, custom text, etc) so i'm excited for the future, but really do hope the memory usage gets resolved sometime soon as scraping a project thats been in development for almost 1 1/2 yrs is a non option. Thanks for listening to the users and being open!
Comments
QS
:DDr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
Probably so.
- Jake
My thoughts:
- Multiple actor selecting and PLEASE let us make folders in the actor and in the image section!!!
- let us color the rules who are important or so, that would be great. (@quatumsheep)
- custom loading bar/wheel/etc.
- FONTS!!! It's annoying to make an image for every text because GS fonts don't look professional...
- Separate window for the main/scene attributes
- timer optimisation. I made a metronome-app with GS in the past and the timers don't work very precisely.
- X,Y coordinates directly in the scene editor (that we don't have to go in the actor to edit them) and round them to whole numbers (115.4 to 115).
EDIT: I think the GS creator has problems with big projects. I worked in the past months at a really big project with very big tables. I don't know if the creator has problems with big tables or with big projects. I think it's the big tables that make problems. But this has not a very high priority because i think there are not many people that work with very big tables...
I know many of them are mentioned before in this thred but they are the important ones for me!
---
Benjamin
Would love native-code export for pro-users with the new engine, Or at least native code input for adding your own features (for those that know how)
API input
Hi, and welcome!
I would ask principally 5 things,
1. - To edit the X and Y without entering the actor. (Do not understand how something so basic and save much time we do not have it yet)
2. - Load times when changing scene and a choice of 3 or 4 types of transitions.
3. - Ability to integrate APIs, Camera, location, Facebook, etc
4. - Try an attribute named "Code" and drag the attribute code when the actor opens a window to write code?
5. - Push Notifications and Multiplayer would be my dream.
haha good luck friend on your new adventure as engineer GS, hope we can all be proud of GS, but that if I hope that changes soon arrive! xD
Customizing & additions to Creator interface
- Custom loading wheel would be great for pro users, we deserve that
- .self attributes absent in a new actor to which code is copied created automatically like someone said
- Fonts!!!!
- Custom collision boxes. If you cannot do custom *shapes* then at least allow us to for example make a rectangle or square have a different collision shape. That way I can make a graphic with glow, for example, with the "glow" registering a hit. (constraining actors to each other for this such kills performance)
Actors & interface small fixes with huge work flow benefits...
- In actor list, when I hit a letter, please let it jump the first actor with that letter.
- Folders for actors in the actors list AND/OR if I select a group of actors by selecting a tag, please don't kill my view after I went into an actor. Currently I select tag "enemies", I click an enemy, then I come back and the list is back at all actors.
- Save scrolling position after viewing actor as well.
- Save the tool area size. If I drag it to the right so I have more actors per column, it doesn't save after viewing an actor.
- Snapping and coordinates for actors in creator (whole numbers)
- Multiple actor selection and dragging
- Add a custom zoom in creator view!! Very annoying when working on iPad and not being able to see the full screen...
Important logic fixes/additions/readability
- Fix move to behavior: it's erratic. Sometimes shoots beyond target, stops working etc.
- Fix interpolate - it's not very precise?
- Fix timers: inaccurate and too performance heavy?
- Change attribute to/constrain to code block have a longer field when *not selected*. this way if you have quite a bit of code in there, you can read it without opening it.
- Change "view for code" - remove the blocks and just show "naked" code in whatever form it would reveal itself, instead of the blocks. Allow user to scroll through it, and make some parts necessary for the structure (that creates the "blocks") greyed out if necessary.
Would be cool...
- Allow for a change of attribute type + if you change a boolean to integer, for example, have something like change all "true" to 1 and change all "false" to 0?
- Attribute substitution. In other words: All references to attribute X, will now reference to attribute Y.
The things mentioned above regarding the interface, by the way, are exactly why (I think) many people feel that GameSalad is not having their priorities straight. The interface stuff takes very little time to fix but after 3 years is still not done. Major "what the hell?" factor for new users, I think. When working on a medium to big sized projects, these things become VERY frustrating. It takes a while to find actor, it takes a while to load... you try to sort actors/change interface, and after you make changes to the actor, boom... interface back to default. - Argh! -
[runs for high ground as the feature request Tsunami approaches]
The ability for spawned actors to be spawned to a layer of your choice. This would open up a whole new world of possibilities, pseudo-2D/3D game environments would become viable, they are possible now but with a lot of additional behind-the-scenes stuff going on.
If you're expecting everything and the kitchen sink in the next update then you'll be disappointed.
If, instead, you're expecting iterative improvements to the tool and engine then you'll get what you expect!
Don't get me wrong Gamesalad has always been awesome.
It is possible that we may have transitions between scenes?
I'm hearing you loud and clear.
@RUPAS
I've added that to the list of things to take a look at.
I have access to both Mac & PC, but I definitely prefer using my PC.
Thanks!
The slowing down when you open the expression editor on relatively big projects is prob the worst part.
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/51266/collision-glitch-now-a-non-pro-discussion
www.marcosriffel.com
BRUNKT.com
Follow me at: Twitter - Instagram
Games and Templates
Appstore
It would be great if game salad automatically pause game when user exit.
its frustrating when you loose points after phone call interrupt.
And as a secondary question, if it is converting to the maximum settings per image because of this, does it mean it doubled for the 10.2 update in the same fashion variables did?
And lastly, even after converting almost all real attributes to integer and cleaning my code up for a week i'm still experiencing crashes. Support has suggested I reduce project size/image size after testing it, but based on my tests this is a null point. I know ways that memory reduction could be achieved with features, and it looks like you and others have covered some (spriter plugin, custom text, etc) so i'm excited for the future, but really do hope the memory usage gets resolved sometime soon as scraping a project thats been in development for almost 1 1/2 yrs is a non option. Thanks for listening to the users and being open!