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AppGameKit Classic Chat / Anyone using Visual Editor?

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basicFanatic
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Posted: 9th Jul 2018 21:13
I'm doing platform game, and need to figure out how to do the levels. I just tried getting into the Visual Editor. The editor itself is easy enough, but my initial impression is that it just isn't designed to work along with game code. Each sprite is named "Sprite [number]". So if I create a level with 200 platform sprites, I need to rename those 200 sprites one at a time, and then I have to find a way for my game code to recognize each of those sprites as platforms. I also have no clue which .agc files I'm able to hack without it being overwritten if I run the Visual Editor on the project again. There are three pages in the manual about how to add my own code to the Visual Editor source files, but they don't really say all that much.

So far, I consider making a script which converts a PSD document to a level. But that takes precious time, and I might crash and burn. Should I do that, or is the visual editor a better bet?
xCept
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Posted: 9th Jul 2018 22:34 Edited at: 9th Jul 2018 22:34
I agree with your points about Visual Editor and believe that the disconnect between the editor and AppGameKit (as far as sprite manipulation and interaction goes) has always been a huge problem. I'm not sure if anyone has been successful yet at using the visual editor to arrange assets and then properly interact with them to make a complete game in AGK.

Even the included sample projects do nothing except display the static assets on screen, with no dynamics or logic at all. Projects like their Jewel Game look nice in the editor but would be essentially impossible to make into a working game from within AGK. In that example, each of the jewel sprites are randomly named "Sprite 1 ... Sprite 65" etc. and most are copy-pasted with duplicate names. There's no way you'd be able to track or manipulate them into a bejeweled style game from within AppGameKit based on what is established in the editor.

I'd like to see TGC include full, completed projects that tie the visual editor to the AppGameKit code to demonstrate how it is possible to work successfully in this environment. At the moment I find it less time-consuming to simply manually position everything within AppGameKit directly. Right now especially with the steep $50 price tag I think most will be disappointed in what they find if they base their purchase only on the screenshots of the editor that suggests a more correlated connection to AppGameKit coding. It also hasn't been updated in three months. Most other engines that I have worked with provide a visual editor component for free and it is much more tightly integrated into the coding platform.

Tumira
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Posted: 10th Jul 2018 01:56 Edited at: 10th Jul 2018 01:57
I did managed to make 3 games with it already(mobile games with multiple scenes , ads , google play and etc). I havent uploaded it yet because I need more time to test. My complaints are the sprite numbering and it is buggy. Already reported it to TGC. What I heard from Mike is that layer management is coming. I hope he will add tilemap supports also in next version but I doubt it. Currently for simple and small games it is doable.

To be honest with you, without visual editor I probably wont use AppGameKit for my games. I'm an ex Construct 2 user and currently porting all my games (hopefully) to AGK. Visual Editor did help me a lot. I did port 2 of my games to Unity and it is not a good experience since I like and need the 2D style programming and not the Unity style ? Not sure If you understands me.

I do hope Paul and someone from TGC team would help Mike on fixing and adding features to the Visual Editor.
smallg
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Posted: 10th Jul 2018 09:34
Easiest way to get the platforms would likely be to check for the image being used as I would imagine there's a lot of repeated images on your platforms.
You could even go a step further and put them all the platform images in a folder called platforms and then check the image string for that - that way all platforms can be found via 1 search.

I use the visual editor for every project now, its brilliant for getting the general feel of your layout without needing code.
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basicFanatic
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Posted: 11th Jul 2018 09:14 Edited at: 11th Jul 2018 09:17
Strange that the program is so polished, yet they have neglected to make it play along with AGK. Still, it's nice to see that some folks find it useful!

Me, I ended up writing a rough Photoshop script which converts a Photoshop document to a level in AGK.

psd2level.jsx

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fubarpk
Retired Moderator
19
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Playing: AGK is my friend
Posted: 11th Jul 2018 18:32 Edited at: 11th Jul 2018 18:37
Never used the visual editor but would've had I not made my own before the release

The numbering system seems the best way of getting a large amount of tiles into your game

My Platform Editor may be an alternative https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/222027
but you will need images named 1.png 2.png etc to test. It is set up using offset views and you use the keys
to set which group etc sprites belong 2


I used it to create

fubar
vittada
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Posted: 12th Jul 2018 22:46
Yes, I do. It is very useful and effective for designing purposes. Less complex and easy to perform. I'm new to game developing and the designing part is what I've been interested in it. With this kit, it is easy to place the objects regarding placing them geometrically, like rotation and scaling.
Bob Sherman
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Posted: 18th Jul 2018 14:51
Im so angry at how little they have done with this software. They were charging $50, its been months and they haven't even added tilemaps!!! I bought this and its basically useless.
GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Posted: 18th Jul 2018 15:34
I have seen it but not sure what advantage there is over using Tiled. But I tend to think of using tile maps for everything 2D and 3D. Map arrays are very straightforward to work with and can use layers for basically everything needed not just visual imagery data but meta data such as enemy spawn points, enemy spawner locations, warp door entrances and targets, lighting and additional visual or audio fx, area markers, npc locations, way points / paths, etc.
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psychoanima
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Posted: 18th Jul 2018 18:08
In my opinion, it costs too much for what it gives.
Sonstiges
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Posted: 4th Aug 2018 16:08
The Visual Editor is full of bugs. I tried to design my app with it and I#m at the point to give up. Changes are not saved and I don´t know why. The most annoying problem is the dynamic resolution. You want to change something in the different resolution and the change is not saved. So you do it over and over again and it doesn´t work. So the wohle tool becomes useless.... I need a Visual Editor to design the app and I thought this might help, but now I think I have written the wohle code in AppGameKit for nothing...
Golelorn
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Posted: 4th Aug 2018 17:58 Edited at: 4th Aug 2018 18:03
Tried to use it yesterday. There doesn't seem to be a percentage base system, so I was only getting back screen X, Y. I was still going to use it, and just figure out the coordinates manually. But then I could not scale based off a percentage based system, either. I do not understand the scaling in AppGameKit for sprites using a percentage based system, so I just found it quicker to use trial and error. Disappointing, that there is no percentage based numbers. I guess it would be fine if you only had to work on one resolution.

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