RCs are coming...
adent42
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Since it's been a while, I wanted to share what we've been up to.
Release Candidates
We're in the middle of QAing two Release Candidates for both Android and iOS.
- Online creator scalability. As our education community has grown, the online creator has need to grow as well. The team has been setting up servers to handle GameSalad's growing online user base. While that doesn't affect most of you now, as we begin the transition to the HTML5 based creator, (hopefully sometime next year), this will improve your eventual experience.
- The iOS candidate updates code for showing Admob Video Reward ads (updating to a non-deprecated API) as well as fixes for the sizing of banner ads by taking advantage of Admob's latest "Adaptive" banner ad size system.
- Android was the long tent poll here. We needed to overhaul how our android build system works. It's not 100% modern yet, but it's part way there and will allow us to more quickly update ad network libraries. (Ad networks have gotten crazy. We now have to include the kotlin runtime!). As part of that, we have updated IronSrc to the latest SDK along with all supported SDKs, which includes Chartboost and Admob updates.
Should testing go well, we should be able to release these next week. If testing goes REALLY well, we're going to skip or shorten the RC time and make them the full releases.
The Future, future, future...
Our team is also working on getting Windows APK signing updated and some longer term updates to the engine that will future proof us (targeting the bgfx library instead of OpenGL, which will allow us to use Metal, Vulkan, and Direct X graphics backends). This work is slow going, but once it's done GameSalad's engine will be in a great position for the future.
In addition, modernizing the build system and getting a better cross platform player (hello Windows & Linux) it will allow us to being the transition to the HTML5 creator while keeping our promise to have NATIVE preview with a downloadable version of the HTML5 creator.
I don't expect to see the fruits of this labor in your hands before next year, but once it's ready, I'm hoping you'll be really happy with the results!
As we've said in the past, HTML5 will only become the One True Creator when we can give you native preview and offline mode. The bgfx and attending build system update work will put us one step closer to that. And when that happen and we only have one tool to support, we can really start putting the gas on new features!
I want to work on the new text entry system, a saner wire format for network behaviors, improved table loading times, and a light weight custom code behavior among other things!
We appreciate the community's patience as we do all this behinds the scenes work and hope to have the new RCs in your hands next week!
Comments
"As we've said in the past, HTML5 will only become the One True Creator when we can give you native preview and offline mode. The bgfx and attending build system update work will put us one step closer to that"
Yes sure we want the best for this super amazing Software and thank you about your hard work @adent42 but don't forget that html5 "One True Creator" must open/import, without bugs, all my existing old projects.
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Hi adent I would like to ask you 2 things, the first is if the 100 MG limit for android publications has finally been exceeded.
The second concerns the creator. Sometimes I try the online version, I think it has the potential to become beautiful, but for now I still find it less comfortable and intuitive than the windows version.
One of the main problems of the online creator is that when I insert projects that work on windows and also on smartphones, they become unusable because "a thousand" errors appear that I don't understand how to correct and it becomes frustrating, because it doesn't allow me to press "play"
Can't you remove these checks and make sure that what worked continues to be accepted by the online creator?
from memory, there was an issue a few months back with apps submitted to google play that were over 100mb. has this been looked at yet? apologies if i got my wires crossed.
@pinkio75 more-or-less. it's not gonna be perfect, but it should open things either without a problem or with minimal fixes to the file needed.
@UltraLionBlu we can make something that turns off warnings. The warnings are usually related to either behaviors that are not filled in or expressions the are accessing things they should not like an actor prototype accessing scene attributes in an expression. The Windows tool allows for some things the mac tool doesn't and they're things that can potentially be broken but work out if the scope is limited. Like prototypes accessing scene attributes. If the actor is added to another scene, the game would break. But if it's only ever used in that one scene, things work out okay, but it's technically not great.
@bob loblaw not yet, but we can start looking at that next now that we have the android build modernized and settled (once we finish this release).
when I tried to open one of my simple project it didn't work ... but it was a long time ago ... anyway thank you for reply; but finger crossed about compatibility.
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This is great news! can't wait...
new text entry system
light weight custom code behavior
What "light" means?
All sounds great, looking forward to it!
re: Opening projects, I've noticed that 2.0 is way less forgiving of sloppy code, and throws up errors if you do overly-cheeky things. That's on me though not 2.0, and it helped me fix a few longstanding unnoticed errors by flagging them up. (Hopefully you fixed the incorrect errors I flagged up a few weeks ago, I haven't actually checked though.)
re: 2.0 for non-education users, there's actually something that has been discussed before that I prioritise higher than either native preview or offline mode — a slimline "Pro" skin. Right now behaviours are very big and (for me after more than 10 years on the Mac version) jagged. Looking forward to a more compact, ideally rounder option. Hopefully the need for a more "Pro" skin for 2.0 doesn't get lost amongst the many other things on your plate! I'd also strongly recommend consulting the community as you design it, we can be a fussy bunch!
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Oh, reading UltraLionBlu's comment, a couple more thoughts.
re: the errors and not being able to press play, agreed 100%. There were several projects I just couldn't work on in 2.0 due to the incorrect errors mentioned before preventing preview, so I ended up back on the Mac version pretty quickly. Something to say "Ignore the errors and just do it" would definitely be a great addition.
re: Prototypes accessing scene attributes, if that became and option it would be very nice indeed. Perhaps let us use the scene attributes and throw up a warning if that prototype is put on another scene (that doesn't have corresponding default attributes)?
re: Bigger games on Android, this would also be lovely. Have one in the pipeline with the creator of Zoe (whose icon you have in the middle of the top row on your front page) that will definitely demand more than 100mb. Would be amazing to get that facility!
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Exactly, being able to say something like "ok these are errors but I don't care, let me go on": D
In some cases I need to use the scene attributes in an actor who has to spawn later, in those cases that I know the only way is to put the scene attributes in the prototype, not being able to do it would preclude many possibilities.
Custom code editor, ay?
Ohh yessss!
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In the meantime, you can always constrain scene attributes to game attributes and use those in the prototype. This was the very first request I posted on the GameSalad forums many many moons ago though so I'm definitely with you in hoping @adent42 is able to find a clean way for us to get at them directly!
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Maybe wouldn't it be easier to maintain the creator version for mac unchanged and make it available for everyone online?
Maybe adding the features that we wanted in the past?
And about: Something to say "Ignore the errors and just do it" would definitely be a great addition; could be a great thing!
instead the choice to "radically change" everything and not make compatible the games that we have created for the stand alone version could make other users lose...
is just my personal opinion.
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You're right they can be linked to game attributes, it's a good idea even if doing so will always require more game attributes, we hope for a leaner future system.
I don't know if it's the right topic, but since you are fantasizing about possible future functions, I've always dreamed of being able to change the layers of the actors at any time through the code, I think it's the biggest lack, this would open a world of more possibilities, of course in the small you can try to create 2 identical actors and small tricks but in my opinion it is something that does not work..
Here are my two very small wishes for the creator 2.0:
I use Windows creator, and in my projects I make prototypes access scene attributes a lot. I remember when I tried importing one of my older games to the html5 creator I had over 1000 errors which made my game no longer possible to test.
I can see how it would break the game if used incorrectly; I understand that if had a prototype access a unique scene attribute, then it would break the game when the prototype appears on other scenes. But I only ever make prototypes access scene attributes which all the scenes naturally have - such as the camera attributes.
I know this may not be intended behaviour for the creator, but It is something I (and I'm sure many others) use a lot. If that ability is lost when the Windows creator is replaced, many people's projects will be ruined. Is it not possible to implement it as an actual feature, but just have it limit you to only use on default scene attributes?
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I agree. Using the online 2.0 is a no go for me as I am not able to migrate my projects over. I love the idea of supporting more platforms and maybe lower the license price to bring the product inline with other engines.
@adent42 So will there also be a way with the creator2.0 to export the project without having to publish it? This is very important.
Thanks for all the good work!
I think the creator 2.0 need more work, first the UI is not friendly I cant understand the code quickly.
The import projects double your work time because you got like a 100 errors and to fix them you need to stop your work for 2 weeks in the good case.
After 9 years on Mac creator it will be hard to make the transformation.
in the end I think that the Mac creator should be "the one true creator".
Yes the same for me.. if possible GS should use the mac interface in the web creator and import existing projects without errors.
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@nir3112 @pinkio75 the problem with the mac creator is a matter of time to develop and legacy. The mac creator is GREAT, but over the last few years Apple keeps changing things that destabilize it, combined with early decisions on our part that have made it very hard to maintain.
Most of the things mentioned as bugs with the HTML5 creator can be fixed in hours. In about half a day I could debug and fix import issues.
The last round of memory leak fixes was two solid weeks of work for little benefit!
We've spent a good many months just trying to get back to the point where we can even maintain the Windows and Mac tools.
During that time, I could have fixed all the mentioned bugs in the HTML5 creator and started adding new features! And, because HTML5 is relatively stable in the places we're using it, I don't have to worry about the same kind of issues! BUT you're not paying for beta tools, so we need to put the effort into making the native tools as good as we can.
So yes, the HTML5 creator is imperfect, but it's fixable. The two native creators are increasingly not.
That being said, I'd like to put people at ease with a few things:
There are a lot of criteria for the HTML5 creator becoming the one-true-creator. I only mention it here because having native preview is a step in the right direction. We still have a whole host of things to figure out and implement including:
I only mention it in this thread because one of the big hurdles, Native Preview, is something we're close to cracking. It doesn't mean we'll be switching soon (the earliest I can even fathom at this point is late 2021).
Oh some notes on the HTML5 creator:
Having watching the GS team battle with the Mac creator in particular for *years* now, I'm fully behind the shift to web creator, particularly if the team is open to customisability. We've been slowly losing Mac creator functionality one little bit at a time, and if we can get @adent42's attention shifted away from maintaining it then we can instead get to work nagging him for things like sound file picked via expression. GameSalad is still, in my opinion, the best way of quickly and easily making games, it's just stagnated feature-wise for years. Let's let @adent42 turn his attention to improving the engine and not battling a decrepit app.
I'd say memory leaks are a fool's errand now. The only truly critical bug in Mac creator (though one of many bugs) is the inability to edit attributes in Big Sur. Everything else just requires saving frequently (which should be done anyway) and the occasional restart of the app, or are visual issues specific to dark mode.
Speed, native preview and more compact UI are the main things I'm looking out for and it sounds like all are on the radar, so I'll just patiently wait.
Oh and bullet point 3 re: scene attributes sounds like the perfect solution.
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@adent42 Thanks for answering, I hope the team will do the best work with the web creator so it will be perfect to use and I hope the UI will changed as well and be more like the Mac creator.
@Armelline The bug in Big Sur is very critical and make daily work very hard and it must be fixed ASAP so we can continue working until the web creator. I hope the team will fix it soon..
I was forced to use the creator while I waited for my machine to be fixed and I got use it. Other than the hurdle of fixing all the errors when I first imported it, it works great.
For now, @nir3112 keep in mind that it's only the LAST attribute that can't be edited. If you add a self-attribute and need to go into an instance and edit that attribute, you can't. But if you make another attribute below it, THAT one becomes the one that can't be edited, and the first one can be edited fine.
The only thing I've found so far that literally can't be edited is the Y position, but you can always move the actor on the scene as a temporary workaround.. Not idea, but means there's no hard roadblock, as it were.
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yes I got that after a while..thanks[=
but the real problem here is the Y Position like you said, you can move the actor but sometimes it take more time and you must use the in actor attributes