Pixel Pang Preview [videoz]

By ippa Date 2010-08-17 12:46

@jlnr: Since it's basically an editor to "do whatever with GameObjects" (create, delete, rotate, fade in/out, resize, move, clone) you could most likely use it for many types of games. Made a quick crappy vid of me editing a sidescroller game with chingus viewport-trait: http://ippa.se/videos/holiday_droid_edit.avi

... depending on your gamelogic you can switch back and forth, playing / editing at (almost) the same time. Basically starting the editor is just push_game_state(GameStates::Edit) from the state where you wanna muck around with the game objects.

@banister: Hah, I found a dude on some pixelforum who painted him... but then I got stuck on the circle vs rect thingie for 6 months :). Mailed him again yesterday, hoping he'll wanna draw more stuff now :).

All the vids I create with Camtasia gets this blueish overlay when I play it in VLC ... do everyone else get that too? >:O

By Spooner Date 2010-08-18 11:01

I'd suggest, rather than the "right-click to copy under mouse" having a more intuitive ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-v interface. This would allow you to copy a whole selection and place them all, for even more rapid placement.

I like the way the menu appears over the main screen, but it does make editing at the top quite difficult. Perhaps a key to switch it from top to bottom placement? I think that would be better than making clicks go through the menu (the semi-transparency is good, but I don't like being able to interact under the menu). Hmm, that is actually something I should consider rather than having my GUI completely separate from the game window.

I'm actually creating a similar editor as the core part of my game, though sadly mine has reasonably different requirements so I can't just reuse yours. I'm sure we can cross-fertilise ideas though :)

Bug (though you probably know about it): When you pick up a new object from the menu, if there is already a placed object under it, it is dragged too.

By AmIMeYet Date 2010-08-18 11:56

For my editor, I had a button on the menu that could toggle the position from up to down as well.
Another option would be to have a key - say, Q - that could pull up the menu when needed. Add a nice Window.translate sliding animation and you're done :D

Also, ippa, this project is definitely looking good!

By Spooner Date 2010-08-18 11:59

I was thinking about making mine at the side. This has the advantage that if you run it in widescreen aspect, then it can be always shown and not get in the way. Still musing about this though.

By ippa Date 2010-08-18 14:54

@Spooner: The Ctrl+x/c/v combo is universially known and it's a good idea to add those. Though I still think right click to clone is a good idea, since it's superfast.. and when building levels for common games like sidescrollers, top down RPGs etc.. you use cloning _all the time_. In the pixelart programs I've used I love when I can sample a color from the image with rightclick, since it's much faster then going to the palette and finding the color and then back to the image. The idea comes from that :).

To be clear, this isn't an editor for Pang.. the aim will always be a "general editor" for whatever games (I've used it for 3 very different prototypes so far).. but it's tightly intergrated with Chingu and the GameObject-class. When editing, the game objects are created in the actual gamestate.. so when you close the editor, you can interact with the new stuff right away (+ it's saved to disc in yaml-format).

Ye you have a very special game going Spooner ... still the basic functionallity of moving objects around, scaling, rotating, deleting etc.. would most likely be nice to have in your editor too... but then you got all that other stuff needed too :). I guess you can say the core of your game IS the editor... and then it need to be tailor-suited and perfect for that purpose.

@Spooner, @AmIMeYet About the menu hiding parts of the game area, the editor will actually let you scroll a bit outside the game area so you easily can reach all parts of your level. Then the placement becomes less important. Currently it only works on viewport-trait games though.

By Spooner Date 2010-08-18 16:52

Yeah, my game _is_ the editor, since it is not a game on its own (it is a build-your own game type of thing). Since it is retrofied (true screen resolution is always 320x240, so quite pixellated), scaling and rotating won't work too well, but I guess 90 degree rotation would work and scaling works as long as you make things larger, not smaller, although it does end up more pixelly. Mmm, I'm less sure now :)

I added the right-click-to-pickup-colour functionality to mine after you made me go "Duh!" and it feels significantly better already!

I do love the way your editor is live though. Nice to be able to do that, though if there are moving GameObjects, then you'd lose the positions, surely, if you then went back into editing it? I imagine you can store that state info easily enough though.