⚡ The Power of Unicode . . . . ⚡

SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
edited December 2013 in Working with GS (Mac)
Did you know Unicode symbols are compatible with GameSalad . . . ?

You cut and paste your Unicode symbol into a Display Text behaviour and it displays as if it were normal text - and it carries over to your iOS device too . . .

Example:

I got some Unicode characters and pasted them into a Display Text behaviour:

image

I then hit preview in GameSalad and they displayed exactly as they should:

image

I then passed the project over to my iPad which also displayed the characters correctly.

(screenshot from iPad)

image

So, perhaps not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's probably worth knowing that there are a whole bunch of symbols and characters available to GameSalad (around 40,000 I think) that could be used (copyright free) for buttons and power bars and general game furniture, and you don't have to import any artwork into GameSalad for them.

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Comments

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    An example file:
  • CodeMonsterCodeMonster ACT, AustraliaMember Posts: 1,078
    Wow thanks heaps this can defently come in handy.

    But as we all know the display text behaviour makes txt rly blury on devices so would these images be blury on the actual device?

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  • neomanneoman Member, BASIC Posts: 826
    That is good to know ... Might come in handy at some stage ... Cheers @Socks

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  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    Wow thanks heaps this can defently come in handy.

    But as we all know the display text behaviour makes txt rly blury on devices so would these images be blury on the actual device?
    I've never had a problem with the Display Text Behaviour making text blurry . . . . ?

    The symbols look fine on the device (see screenshot above)
  • CodeMonsterCodeMonster ACT, AustraliaMember Posts: 1,078
    Oh awesome, thanks

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  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    Example symbols . . .

    image
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    ⛄

    : )
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    ☘☭☮♼♽☯⚐⚑⚙⚛❶❷❸✈➔➘➙➚➜➟➠➤➥➨➫➬➭➮➯➲➳➵➶➷➸➹➺➻➼➽➾✄✁✂✌✍✎✉☀☃☁☂★

    Obviously what's cool about the black and white stuff is that you can colour it however you want within GS.
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    Text file (attached) containing some of the above coloured symbols (like the smilies), you can cut and paste from this text file straight into GameSalad's Display Text behaviour.

    ⚡⚡And remember there are thousands of these symbols out there !⚡⚡

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    Games with no artwork would probably load pretty quick ! : )

    Unicode 'ball'.

    image
  • mataruamatarua Auckland, New ZealandMember Posts: 854
    How does the collision work on the text box? You just make the actor the same size and up the type size and make the collision a circle yeah?

    The thing I can see first up is text does not get treated like other objects - so you can't change the alpha on that - or the colour with behaviours - you would have to do that with rules instead eh?

    Cheers, M@
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    How does the collision work on the text box? You just make the actor the same size and up the type size and make the collision a circle yeah?
    It's just a normal standard 100 x 100 pixel actor with its collision shape set to 'circle', it's identical to how you would normally set up a ball (actual file used to make the GIF attached below):
    The thing I can see first up is text does not get treated like other objects - so you can't change the alpha on that
    Not sure what this means ? In the above blue ball example I had to change the alpha to 0 otherwise you'd see the white square of the actor the text was on - just like a normal 'ball' set up.
    . . or the colour with behaviours - you would have to do that with rules instead eh?
    Not sure what this means either !?!?
    8-X :-B
  • mataruamatarua Auckland, New ZealandMember Posts: 854
    Ok - when you have text it is in a box - a white box say, as you say, lets say :-B

    You have to make the box alpha 0 - but what about the ball?

    You can't make the ball Alpha 0 like you could with a normal image based actor.

    Do you get me now? :)
  • mataruamatarua Auckland, New ZealandMember Posts: 854
    Oh, and what happens when you change the actual 'text colour'? Nothing?
  • kinzuakinzua Member Posts: 554
    Is there any way we could make our own unicode graphics and use 'display text' instead of 'change image' behaviour. Am getting tickles at the very thought of it. :D

    Thanks @socks
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    @matarua
    Ok - when you have text it is in a box - a white box say, as you say, lets say :-B

    You have to make the box alpha 0 - but what about the ball?
    The 'ball' is text, it acts the same as normal text - make the actor's alpha =0 and the actor becomes invisible leaving only the 'ball', just like normal text.
    You can't make the ball Alpha 0 like you could with a normal image based actor.
    This is not an image based actor, it is text.

    I'm not 100% sure what you are trying to get at ? You can make the ball sit on an invisible background like any other text, that's all you'd ever really want to do, unless you're thinking of something fiendishly clever that I've not spotted ?!? 8-X

    Want the ball to be on a yellow square, make your actor yellow and you have what you want . . .

    Want the ball to be on a black square, make your actor black and you have what you want . . .

    Want the ball to be on an invisible square, make your alpha channel = 0 and you have what you want . . .

    etc etc

    Is this what you mean ?

    :-B
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    Oh, and what happens when you change the actual 'text colour'? Nothing?
    Do you own a copy of GameSalad ? :))

    When you change the colour of text when using pictorial Unicode nothing happens, when you change the colour of text when using non-pictorial Unicode it acts exactly like text and takes on the colour you assign it.



    :-B :-B :-B :-B :ar! ;)
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    @kinzua
    Is there any way we could make our own unicode graphics and use 'display text' instead of 'change image' behaviour. Am getting tickles at the very thought of it. :D

    Thanks @socks
    Ha ! That was my first thought, a shortcut to custom fonts :) but unfortunately I suspect the unicode is hardwired into the OS, you have no access to it.
  • tatiangtatiang Member, Sous Chef, PRO, Senior Sous-Chef Posts: 11,949
    @Socks thanks for bringing this to light. I used it a while ago in an app I built for a client but I stumbled upon it through trial and error when wanting to display symbols in a saved game list and figured it was probably not supported. Glad to see it fleshed out a bit more.

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  • mataruamatarua Auckland, New ZealandMember Posts: 854
    @Socks hehe - yep but I work between Windows and Mac all day and forums are on Windows and GameSalad is on Mac and yeah um #lazybum me just thought I would ask lol :D

    I was not saying it was an image based actor - I was comparing it to one - sorry if that is not clear :-B

    And this will make you laugh - this thread looks like this in my tab on my browser... "⚡ The Power of Unico..."

    The Power of Unicorn: The power of the mysterious unicode unicorn is about to be unleashed!
  • mataruamatarua Auckland, New ZealandMember Posts: 854
    edited December 2013
    I see you could make a flat game of chess with it - having a scan on the characters now...
  • gyroscopegyroscope I am here.Member, Sous Chef, PRO Posts: 6,598

    Good stuff, @Socks! :-)

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  • Braydon_SFXBraydon_SFX Member, Sous Chef, PRO, Bowlboy Sidekick Posts: 9,271
    edited December 2013
    Pssh... I thought everyone knew that? Come now, Socks, post something helpful for once ;)

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  • JSprojectJSproject Member Posts: 730
    edited December 2013
    @Socks - cool, if it actually would have worked with the symbols as display text on an actual device.. ;-) Which IOS version did you test it on? When running it via the GS viewer in Mavericks I get the exact same result (the nice big colored emoji symbols) however, when testing both via the GS viewer and via adhoc build on an IPAD3 running IOS 6.1.2 the result is quite different in the form of about 3 mm high emoji symbols and they are all black-and-white.

    Edit: Seems to work exactly as you described on IOS 7.0.4

    Edit 2: Ok, have a better understanding of it now:

    Minimal IOS version during build phase (adhoc) - Target Device running IOS 6.1.2
    - IOS 4.3: 3mm, black-and-white
    - IOS 5.0: 3mm, color
    - IOS 6.0: 3mm, color

    Minimal IOS version during build phase (adhoc) - Target Device running IOS 7.0.4
    - IOS 5.0: color, as shown in Socks screenshots and as seen in the preview in GS on MAC

    Conclusion: Only use if you expect all users to be running IOS 7.

    (Socks, you still rock though :-)
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    @Socks - cool, if it actually would have worked with the symbols as display text on an actual device.. ;-) Which IOS version did you test it on? When running it via the GS viewer in Mavericks I get the exact same result (the nice big colored emoji symbols) however, when testing both via the GS viewer and via adhoc build on an IPAD3 running IOS 6.1.2 the result is quite different in the form of about 3 mm high emoji symbols and they are all black-and-white.

    Edit: Seems to work exactly as you described on IOS 7.0.4

    Edit 2: Ok, have a better understanding of it now:

    Minimal IOS version during build phase (adhoc) - Target Device running IOS 6.1.2
    - IOS 4.3: 3mm, black-and-white
    - IOS 5.0: 3mm, color
    - IOS 6.0: 3mm, color

    Minimal IOS version during build phase (adhoc) - Target Device running IOS 7.0.4
    - IOS 5.0: color, as shown in Socks screenshots and as seen in the preview in GS on MAC

    Conclusion: Only use if you expect all users to be running IOS 7.

    (Socks, you still rock though :-)
    @JSproject

    Good stuff, needs lots of testing, exactly like you are doing, to find out its uses / limits / foibles, I only tested on OS7.

    :)>-
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited December 2013
    P.S . . . if you need characters larger than 100 point (GameSalad's limit), quit GS, open the file (show package contents), open the actors folder and then open the XML file of the actor, now find the font size . . . good idea to make it easier to find by giving it a particular value while you are still in GS, I use '55' then simply search for '55', type a new large number in its place (like 400), hit save, quit and then reopen your GS project.
  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    big
  • jonmulcahyjonmulcahy Member, Sous Chef Posts: 10,408
    P.S . . . if you need characters larger than 100 point (GameSalad's limit), quit GS, open the file (show package contents), open the actors folder and then open the XML file of the actor, now find the font size . . . good idea to make it easier to find by giving it a particular value while you are still in GS, I use '55' then simply search for '55', type a new large number in its place (like 400), hit save, quit and then reopen your GS project.
    @blackcloak @codewizard, any chance we could get the font size limit raised from 100 to 999 or something? i put in a feature request this morning so you have an official request. Since it's just a drop down value I imagine it should be easier than some other jobs you have on your plate. :)

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  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited September 2015

    @jonmulcahy said:
    blackcloak codewizard, any chance we could get the font size limit raised from 100 to 999 or something? i put in a feature request this morning so you have an official request. Since it's just a drop down value I imagine it should be easier than some other jobs you have on your plate. :)

    Getting on for 2 years now.

  • mhedgesmhedges Raised on VCS Member Posts: 634

    @Socks said:
    Did you know Unicode symbols are compatible with GameSalad . . . ?

    You cut and paste your Unicode symbol into a Display Text behaviour and it displays as if it were normal text - and it carries over to your iOS device too . . .

    >

    This is pretty cool! Thanks for sharing.

    The funny part is that I might use this in my upcoming game if my artist (cough daughter cough) still feels like not delivering the proposed artwork. I asked her if she wanted to draw some characters for me, and she said yes, but that was a couple of weeks ago, and I'm running out of code... :D

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