First blog.
by Jemand den es nicht gibt · 07/03/2006 (6:19 am) · 6 comments
Hiya!
I finally got around to join all you GarageGame bloggers. ;) First of all, I want to say that I think this is a great community, I feel very comfortable here.
I joined you last winter when I bought Torque 2D. I love 2D games and making them. Before I heard of Torque 2D I made my own small sprite engines in C++ using DirectDraw/3D or used stuff like Haaf's Game Engine. I'm glad I purchased T2D.. I can quickly make small fun games without having to care much about the actual technology that's running it... I want to make games after all, not engines. :)
It was also fun to watch T2D evolve over the months. When I got it, it was Alpha and it advanced a great deal over a small amount of time. I must say I am pretty happy with the 1.1 release. :)
At the moment I am working on a small Zelda-style isometric hack'n'slay game and it's coming along well. I will post some screenshots in one of my coming blog posts or put them in the Show Off! section of our forums. :)
One thing that annoyed me is the fact that it's pretty hard to find through all your objects when you have a laid out background, detail layer, obstacles, game objects... etc. It's pretty hard to pick a small enemy if it's hidden between a bunch of trees. To make things easier I am working on a layer/group manager that extends the Level Editor and allows to name groups/layers(not sure if that's really needed), turn layers/groups invisible or just lock them so they are still visible but just excluded from the picking. I will post some screenshots on that either soon.
I'd like to know if others have the same problem with the Level Builder and if anyone would like to see that one to be released as a resource?
So far,
Ollie
I finally got around to join all you GarageGame bloggers. ;) First of all, I want to say that I think this is a great community, I feel very comfortable here.
I joined you last winter when I bought Torque 2D. I love 2D games and making them. Before I heard of Torque 2D I made my own small sprite engines in C++ using DirectDraw/3D or used stuff like Haaf's Game Engine. I'm glad I purchased T2D.. I can quickly make small fun games without having to care much about the actual technology that's running it... I want to make games after all, not engines. :)
It was also fun to watch T2D evolve over the months. When I got it, it was Alpha and it advanced a great deal over a small amount of time. I must say I am pretty happy with the 1.1 release. :)
At the moment I am working on a small Zelda-style isometric hack'n'slay game and it's coming along well. I will post some screenshots in one of my coming blog posts or put them in the Show Off! section of our forums. :)
One thing that annoyed me is the fact that it's pretty hard to find through all your objects when you have a laid out background, detail layer, obstacles, game objects... etc. It's pretty hard to pick a small enemy if it's hidden between a bunch of trees. To make things easier I am working on a layer/group manager that extends the Level Editor and allows to name groups/layers(not sure if that's really needed), turn layers/groups invisible or just lock them so they are still visible but just excluded from the picking. I will post some screenshots on that either soon.
I'd like to know if others have the same problem with the Level Builder and if anyone would like to see that one to be released as a resource?
So far,
Ollie
#2
07/03/2006 (8:22 am)
Thanks for the comment. :) Yeah i thought about an onion skin feature aswell... i saw some layer blending stuff hidden inside the C++ side of T2D.. I have yet to try if this is all functional. :) 
#3
In other words, I really like how TGB is a wrapper for things that could be done in script.
07/03/2006 (9:48 am)
A layer system would be awesome! I'm already having selection issues in the GUI with a simple game. However, make sure the layers don't seem like they should extend into torquescript (or make them do so and make that obvious). I say that because I've spent the past few weeks with Flash's actionscript, where layers, depths, and scenes (all awesome GUI things) aren't accessible (or at least not in a way that would make sense) in script.In other words, I really like how TGB is a wrapper for things that could be done in script.
#4
07/03/2006 (10:39 am)
Sorry you got me wrong. :) TGB already has a layer system.. it has 32 layers(0 - 31) and same goes for groups. Just sometimes it's easier to lock or hide a certain layer in order to have better access to stuff on a different layer. 
#5
The only way to do it is to use the project tab and then click on each thing separately, which is not as intuitive as just clicking on the object. Would be a great feature to have, I think!
07/03/2006 (11:05 am)
I second (third?) all the encouragement. I'm *always* having "pick-up" issues. It's really annoying. I coded something wrong and had to go into the level builder to change the layers on everything one at a time. The only way to do it is to use the project tab and then click on each thing separately, which is not as intuitive as just clicking on the object. Would be a great feature to have, I think!
#6
Sorry for not making my weird conception of layers clear. :)
07/03/2006 (11:04 pm)
Oliver - yeah, I know there's the layer system, but I was thinking more of layers as they are used in the Flash UI. Not only do layers affect the depth of objects, but they also can be locked, hidden, selected, and modified regardless of the currently selected object. The current TGB system is lacking a good way to select instances of items from a list or something, like a class hierarchy but for objects ;). I include that in my conception of layers because of Flash, I guess. As far as I know, there's no way to select all the objects on a certain layer or hide an entire layer from the GUI. I guess I just want a more powerful interface to the entire layer and group system.Sorry for not making my weird conception of layers clear. :)
Torque 3D Owner Phil Carlisle
It would also be useful in a game context too.. for instance, you might want to make some layers which are over the top of important objects become semi-transparent etc.