Does Game salad has a collision editor like Unity?

famekrafts

The RPG game I am creating needs to have some depth, for example, the character needs to be able to move in front as well as back of say a tree or a crate.

In unity, we do it by editing the collision box of the character. Is it possible to do the same in game salad?

AlkaPP

GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

famekrafts

@AlkaPP said:
GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

Where can I find the 3rd plugin?

Armelline

@famekrafts said:

@AlkaPP said:
GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

Where can I find the 3rd plugin?

There's a free one too, but this one is much easier:

https://www.codeandweb.com/physicseditor

The exporter plugin for it can be found in the Cookbook, linked at the top of the GS web page.

famekrafts

@AlkaPP said:
GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

What I am failing to understand is that this feature has been demanded from 2011, as I search on these forums I found many threads from 2011 looking for this custom collision to work in Gamesaald.

Why no one from gamesalad ever worked to add this feature to the engine? It is a very basic requirement of a game engine.

I remember using Torque game engine in 2011, even they had this feature at that time. Unity , Unreal all have it, why not Game salad?

famekrafts

@Armelline said:

@famekrafts said:

@AlkaPP said:
GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

Where can I find the 3rd plugin?

There's a free one too, but this one is much easier:

https://www.codeandweb.com/physicseditor

The exporter plugin for it can be found in the Cookbook, linked at the top of the GS web page.

Thanks I will give this a look, once I am free from the designing part of my game.

Update:

I had texture packer a long time back, that time there was no physics editor.

Can we import from physics editor to gamesalad?

bob loblaw

@famekrafts said:

Can we import from physics editor to gamesalad?

yes (.json files - when you click custom collision in an actor’s physics, gs will prompt you for the file). should be an instructional vid on youtube showing how to use.

just so you know, there’s no dynamic collisions for animation (ie. collision shape changes to suit the image as it animates). you’d need to get creative in your game logic to do this, or make a generic clump to suit the movement of your actor.

famekrafts

@bob loblaw said:

@famekrafts said:

Can we import from physics editor to gamesalad?

yes (.json files - when you click custom collision in an actor’s physics, gs will prompt you for the file). should be an instructional vid on youtube showing how to use.

just so you know, there’s no dynamic collisions for animation (ie. collision shape changes to suit the image as it animates). you’d need to get creative in your game logic to do this, or make a generic clump to suit the movement of your actor.

At least it will work for the non-animated sprites.

tatiang

@famekrafts said:

@AlkaPP said:
GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

What I am failing to understand is that this feature has been demanded from 2011, as I search on these forums I found many threads from 2011 looking for this custom collision to work in Gamesaald.

Why no one from gamesalad ever worked to add this feature to the engine? It is a very basic requirement of a game engine.

I remember using Torque game engine in 2011, even they had this feature at that time. Unity , Unreal all have it, why not Game salad?

From what I've gathered, GameSalad is a very small company without the resources to implement every good suggestion. Many seemingly simply features such as a scene grid, window memory so that window size/location is remembered when clicking around, etc. were asked about years ago and never added. So it's mostly what you see if what you get.

I remember I posted a Unity staff photo on these forums a while back. I think they had like 80 people working for them. So there's your answer...

famekrafts

@tatiang said:

@famekrafts said:

@AlkaPP said:
GS only has round and square collision as default and custom shape collision for others using 3rd plugin, but it’s still definitely far less flexible than unity.

Search for game salad custom shape collision for more information.

What I am failing to understand is that this feature has been demanded from 2011, as I search on these forums I found many threads from 2011 looking for this custom collision to work in Gamesaald.

Why no one from gamesalad ever worked to add this feature to the engine? It is a very basic requirement of a game engine.

I remember using Torque game engine in 2011, even they had this feature at that time. Unity , Unreal all have it, why not Game salad?

From what I've gathered, GameSalad is a very small company without the resources to implement every good suggestion. Many seemingly simply features such as a scene grid, window memory so that window size/location is remembered when clicking around, etc. were asked about years ago and never added. So it's mostly what you see if what you get.

I remember I posted a Unity staff photo on these forums a while back. I think they had like 80 people working for them. So there's your answer...

@tatiang

I am not comparing with Unity, do not take me otherwise.

How big is the Gamesalad team btw?

I am just picking this issue up, as I complete my game, I need to be sure about what can be done and cannot be done in Gamesalad because I am writing it down in the book as well.

Also as this thread caught your eye, maybe in next to next update GS team can think about adding the custom collision feature.

tatiang

I would hope they would add custom collisions. I'm just saying there's a lot I've hoped for for a long time and it hasn't be improved. That being said, the current version of GameSalad is worlds better than when I started. I just have expectations that seemingly little things should be added/fixed over a period of... years.

I don't know how big the GameSalad team is but I assume it's half a dozen people.

AlkaPP

There's a software called Level Editor (developed by a formal GS team I guess), which is extremely useful for me. I use it almost everyday to move and change size of multiple actors at once and the grids feature. It's countless that how many times I wonder why these basic features are not yet included in GS editor.

Very surprised to learn that @tatiang is not one of the GS Team. There's a person name Tan Tran in the team and I always thought it's @tatiang real name.

tatiang

@AlkaPP I've been a volunteer moderator for years. I like to help people! But I've never met the staff or had much interaction with them. Years ago, @SaladStraightShooter was an active member of the forums but since he left there really hasn't been much staff presence around here. It's largely facilitated by several of us who donate our time.

Icebox

I dont think there is a single game engine out there that doesnt support snap to grid and custom collision that is integrated into the engine. Gamesalad lacks many basic features that are required to build a good game. As I worked with several other engines since I started game development I realise now how basic this engine is. Not to say that GS is bad or good games cant be done with it. But expect to do a lot of tweeking to basic things other engines provide.

So since your researching on the things that can or cant be done here are some of the basic features that I found GS lacking

• No shader support

• No nearest neighbor interpolation for pixel art

• It lacks a Grid / Snap to grid

• integrated custom collision

• No proper zoom in/out in the level editor if your using native GS.

• Doesnt support sprite sheets or tilemaps even though it is a dedicated 2d engine.

• I remember the UI system was painful to make cause the canvas is not seperated from the actual game view. You just tick the layer as non scrollable but things like zooming in and out / camera shake will still affect your UI if you dont add logic to support it. It was tricky and difficult

• Programming side/ there are no enums to build a proper state machine or functions that can help avoid repetition

• Cant inherit the logic to avoid repeating everything.

• Its difficult to create your own custom physics when the behaviors are so limited so your forced to use box2d.

• Doesnt support raycasting.

• Doesnt provide a good parent to child relation between actors so creating something like multiple enemy health bars will require a lot of tweeking.

  • Cant export native exe which I dont get why and how it is still not implemented.

But it is the easiest game engine out there even though it takes a lot of the developers freedom.You can still make really good games with GS.

Gamesalad needs to be developed from scratch, they chose to do it using html5/javascript which is not bad but its difficult to predict how further development will actually be. I love this engine and it was the best introduction to game development experience I had. But dont expect much when it comes to adding features as it may take forever or done in the most non intuitive way possible.

jamie_c

@tatiang said:
...Years ago, @SaladStraightShooter was an active member of the forums ...

Those were the days!

famekrafts

@Icebox said:
I dont think there is a single game engine out there that doesnt support snap to grid and custom collision that is integrated into the engine. Gamesalad lacks many basic features that are required to build a good game. As I worked with several other engines since I started game development I realise now how basic this engine is. Not to say that GS is bad or good games cant be done with it. But expect to do a lot of tweeking to basic things other engines provide.

So since your researching on the things that can or cant be done here are some of the basic features that I found GS lacking

• No shader support

• No nearest neighbor interpolation for pixel art

• It lacks a Grid / Snap to grid

• integrated custom collision

• No proper zoom in/out in the level editor if your using native GS.

• Doesnt support sprite sheets or tilemaps even though it is a dedicated 2d engine.

• I remember the UI system was painful to make cause the canvas is not seperated from the actual game view. You just tick the layer as non scrollable but things like zooming in and out / camera shake will still affect your UI if you dont add logic to support it. It was tricky and difficult

• Programming side/ there are no enums to build a proper state machine or functions that can help avoid repetition

• Cant inherit the logic to avoid repeating everything.

• Its difficult to create your own custom physics when the behaviors are so limited so your forced to use box2d.

• Doesnt support raycasting.

• Doesnt provide a good parent to child relation between actors so creating something like multiple enemy health bars will require a lot of tweeking.

  • Cant export native exe which I dont get why and how it is still not implemented.

But it is the easiest game engine out there even though it takes a lot of the developers freedom.You can still make really good games with GS.

Gamesalad needs to be developed from scratch, they chose to do it using html5/javascript which is not bad but its difficult to predict how further development will actually be. I love this engine and it was the best introduction to game development experience I had. But dont expect much when it comes to adding features as it may take forever or done in the most non intuitive way possible.

I will keep these points in mind.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

@famekrafts said:

@bob loblaw said:

@famekrafts said:

Can we import from physics editor to gamesalad?

yes (.json files - when you click custom collision in an actor’s physics, gs will prompt you for the file). should be an instructional vid on youtube showing how to use.

just so you know, there’s no dynamic collisions for animation (ie. collision shape changes to suit the image as it animates). you’d need to get creative in your game logic to do this, or make a generic clump to suit the movement of your actor.

At least it will work for the non-animated sprites.

I developed a system for doing animated collisions a few years ago. The videos are still on my Youtube site. I believe it still works. Haven’t used GS in years. https://www.youtube.com/user/dsouza41/videos?disable_polymer=1