Platformer Starter Kit Pro

Welcome to my first blog post this year! I was recently relieved of my day job, so I have decided to focus on full-time game/tools/kit development for a while. Fingers crossed I survive!

Onto the matter at hand!

Some of the current PSK users will have already noticed that the actors used in the kit basically run a form of collision detection via Torque Script. It is definitely not the most ideal solution around, as it is incredibly inefficient to perform. Another area that requires considerable improvement is spawning objects. At the moment each spawn point performs an update each frame and determines how far the camera is away from the underlying object. Another nasty piece of work right there!

I am going to take this time to stress that the current PSK works well on PCs and Macs, but it is when we move to some of the less powerful devices like the Wii, Xbox360 or the iPhone that it struggles.

In light of this, I solved some of these issues by converting a number of behaviors to source. This spawned the Platformer Starter Kit Pro! There are 13 source files used, 4 new objects and a number of tweaks to the engine code:

* Actor Behavior has been moved to a new t2dSceneObject class "pskActor".
    * Animation Manager has also been moved to source.
    * Spawn Point Manager detects which spawn points need updating.
    * Spawn Point Behavior has been moved to Component form.
    * Platform Behavior has been moved to Component form.
    * Source based Finite State Machine.

My two biggest concerns with the efficiency of the kit have been taken care of with the above changes. But what does this mean for non-pro users? An update is now available which contains the binary executables (TGB 1.7.4 + PSK Pro) and relevant scripts so that you can reap the benefits, without having to upgrade! Remember though, you will not have access to the source, unless you upgrade!

You can pickup the upgrade from the regular PSK product page here. The PSK forum is open to the public as well, so if you have any comments, questions or concerns feel free to pop on over and plug away!

With all of that out of the way... PSK v1.1.0 is here!

[Version 1.1.0]
   [Bug Fixes]
    - ActorBehavior:
       Now correctly handles "AllowBounceJump"
   
    - GameMethods:
       Fixed the creation of a rotation matrix

   [Improvements]
    - GameMethods:
       Added a number of functions to help interface with PSK Pro
       Added the parallax alternative method

    - ActorBehavior:
       Added basic pathing:
           ActorBehavior::pathToPoint(%targetPoint, %autoStop, %callBack, %targetMargin);
           ActorBehavior::updatePathTarget();
           ActorBehavior::processPathTarget();
       Added reference functions for getting and setting Animation States.
       Added functions to clear various states
           ActorBehavior::clearOnGround();
           ActorBehavior::clearClimbing();
           ActorBehavior::clearGliding();
       Added a bounce function:
           ActorBehavior::bounce(%force, %angle);

       Added X/Y axis movement for ladder climbing
       Changed the way gliding is handled

    - ActorAnimationBehavior:
       Reduced Animation code.

    - AreaDamageBehavior:
       Added "onAreaDamage" callback

    - FallingPlatformBehavior:
       Reduced update complexity, now works on a single schedule timer.

    - PlatformBehavior:
       Added function to determine the surface point of a world coordinate:
           PlatformBehavior::getSurfacePosition(%worldPositionX);

With the exception of basic pathing mechanisms, most of the above changes are minor, but were needed. As always, I love criticism, so feel free to give me any suggestions for future releases (either bug fixes or added features).

I'd like to give a shout out to Derek B. and Ken, you guy are awesome! Thanks for making this possible!

Documentation

Thankfully, many of the processes of creating a level or actor remain unchanged and if you are familiar with the PSK at the moment, you shouldn't have too many issues with it. I am still in the process of updating the documentation and will be talking to Michael Perry about what I am doing to them very soon. So, if you can just hold off for a few days, I should hopefully have a full outline of what has changed in the creation process and updated docs.

Futher Announcements

I have a number of PSK related, yet to be announced projects. I really enjoy working with the PSK and will continue to do so. When I have more to show for my work, I will let everyone know!

A networkable version of the PSK is still coming, I promise. Hopefully I will be able to talk more about that over the next few months... *shifty eyes*

Update
The preliminary documentation page is now up. It covers the most pertinent changes you may need to make when upgrading the PSK.

You can view the doc here.

If anything needs clarifying, let me know and I will get onto it!