Improvements for VS 5 or 6 or even later - just ideas

  • #20, by MehrdadThursday, 22. January 2015, 07:05 10 years ago
    Marvel
    When I saw first game that made by Visionaire I noticed to this issue . Did you see 'The Black Mirror', 'The Dig', ..Did you have see any problem to slow move? .Actually Turn the character is huge help to make more atmospheric games. I'm 2D professional animator and I can't ignore this nice structure .
    Visionaire is the best Adventure game engine at the moment for all artists and you have to concern all of needs an animator. Unfortunately update of Visionaire is take very long time and that's why I don't still buy it .
    When did you add this structure?

    Newbie

    39 Posts


  • #21, by LebosteinThursday, 22. January 2015, 15:56 10 years ago
    Better Animation system.

    At the moment: 1 frame = 1 image
    My wish: 1 frame = set of images. Every image of this set you can freely locate, rotate and crop.

    Key Killer

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  • #22, by afrlmeThursday, 22. January 2015, 16:37 10 years ago
    Better Animation system.

    At the moment: 1 frame = 1 image
    My wish: 1 frame = set of images. Every image of this set you can freely locate, rotate and crop.


    Eh!? I'm not sure I follow your meaning behind this. 1 frame should be 1 image, that is typically what a frame is no? The only way it could be anything else is if the image file was an animated gif file, which I really do not recommend using because they are an awful, lossy image format.

    * edit: Ah wait... I believe you are talking about sprite parts yes? I believe that is on the agenda for a future version of VS.

    Imperator

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  • #23, by NovelFriday, 23. January 2015, 21:05 10 years ago
    The only thing that would improve Visionaire for me is full KEYBOARD control in the editor. There is not a single short cut in the current version now, which is a massive pain in the derrière.

    Newbie

    100 Posts

  • #24, by redsparkFriday, 23. January 2015, 21:38 10 years ago
    In line with the multiple images per frame, perhaps a Spine or Spriter character support? These types of files also are good for animating other game elements such as dialog boxes and menu scenes.

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  • #25, by gustyFriday, 23. January 2015, 23:37 10 years ago
    ..when I saw games that were made by Visionaire for the first time I was instantly let down by the stiff animation system. Characters not turning before moving, no acceleration or deceleration in their movement, just sheets of image sequences stiffly sliding in different directions on a background image. Those small but effective details are there for a reason, to give the characters and other objects a sense of depth and immersion, and blend them better with the backgrounds.


    ^^ This.

    I would just add little statement that the "whole is composed of parts". And if you want to make artificial living world, believable world, then you have to work with details (parts). There is no shortcut here. If you're thinking in terms like "let's make a GREAT story", "let's work on that BIG atmosphere" and also "screw the details, they are worthless", you're very silly because details are everything.

    Btw at the end of the day, walking animation is not really that "small part", because if you think about it, walking character is actually only one element of the whole game that the player will see all the time (talking about third person games now). Things like NPC animations, little flying birdies on the background etc. - these are small parts. But when you have to look at dull and stiff animation of main character for 6 hours, well.. not so good impression for my money..

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  • #26, by afrlmeSaturday, 24. January 2015, 00:05 10 years ago
    It's entirely possible to create smooth walking & turning & start & stopping, well only if you are willing to script (currently), but it is possible. I know not a lot of people on here are comfortable with scripting or are too afraid to learn to script, but that's their prerogative; not mine.

    The same thing can be said about point & click adventure games where the developers have used global interaction animations for half the scene interactions. Personally I hate global interaction animations because they SHOUT laziness to me, as they are done as a corner cutting method for reducing development time. In certain games depending on the type of game & the art style, it doesn't matter so much but when you are playing a game that features rich detail then it should also feature fluid animations.

    Having said that: VS is not responsible for providing everything for you in the click of a button. Maybe certain things will slowly get implemented over time, but as I've already mentioned most of the things people are asking for are already technically possible. Hell most things can be done without scripting which isn't something you can say about most other game engines.

    If people want something even easier than VS, without any programming at all then may I suggest checking out Construct 2 as that is all done via pre-made actions parts.

    Imperator

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  • #27, by DilatedSaturday, 24. January 2015, 08:31 10 years ago
    Hey can I add something?

    One feature I think would be quite nice is a few tweaks for "pause for each frame"

    Quite often I'll need one frame to be longer than the others, but I still have to manually input every single one.

    Would be nice if I could highlight chunks, and set the pause for all highlighted.

    Also AFRLme, what's a good resource to start learning scripting? Something that will really help specifically with visionaire? (nevermind just googled it haha)

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  • #28, by afrlmeSaturday, 24. January 2015, 12:31 10 years ago
    Hey can I add something?

    One feature I think would be quite nice is a few tweaks for "pause for each frame"

    Quite often I'll need one frame to be longer than the others, but I still have to manually input every single one.

    Would be nice if I could highlight chunks, and set the pause for all highlighted.


    Hmm since current build (4.1 or maybe it was 4.0.1 - I forget) you can define global pause value & set individual frame pauses for whichever frames you like.

    1. set your global pause value for all frames.
    2. tick the set pause for each frame option.
    3. by default all frame pause values will say -1, which is the value which tells the engine that these frames should use the global pause value. Any frame that does not contain a pause value of -1 will use the value that you have set (in ms).

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  • #29, by MehrdadSaturday, 24. January 2015, 13:51 10 years ago
    AFRLme @
    I really don't any fear for learn Lua.I made many little games with Action Script 3 and I'm creator 'Datswer' game with Clickteam fusion engine.Also we work complete with AGS and know basic of C++ too.So I can learn Lua because I think it's simple language and I can put many times for it.But you notice I want make times on Lua only for VS .When i question about flexibility Lua language I want get sure that Lua have worth to learn for get many unlimited works in VS.
    So I repeat my question again : Is it Lua in VS complete for make any works even make different genres?
    And as Dilated said
    what's a good resource to start learning scripting? Something that will really help specifically with visionaire?

    thanks again

    Newbie

    39 Posts

  • #30, by afrlmeSaturday, 24. January 2015, 14:13 10 years ago
    You can only create scripts that will work with the Visionaire data structure tables. There are loads of things you can do with those; providing you use your imagination. I go beyond what is possible with the engine a lot of the time & I don't need other lib files or anything. If you want to simulate a gravity system, then sure you can write a script / function for it...

    Want to control your character with the keyboard? write a script for it! Want your player to jump on a certain key press? write a script for it! Want to create some basic AI for your NPC's? write a script for it! Want some basic collision (is in radius) detection? write a script for it! I'm sure you get the idea. Using a combination of the action parts, queries, action area, way system & Lua script I can pretty much create whatever I want... But again: Visionaire Studio is a game engine specifically designed for point & click adventure games. It was never intended to be used for other game genres, so if you want to make other game genres then you will have to be flexible in the way you approach things.

    To be honest I have no idea why you are asking me this... The evaluation version is free. It's exactly the same as the full version, albeit minus the ability to build / compile your games into a playable .exe file. Even with the 10 scene limitation you should have enough to test out the engine for yourself & see what is, & is not possible.

    Everything you need for Lua & the Visionaire Studio object model is available in the wiki. The scripting page (introduction to scripting in VS with Lua & the VS object model) is approx. 90% complete. The data structure page contains almost all available tables / fields of the vs object model, although some still need to be added & I've not finished adding the new example tooltips to it yet, but it's still very usable. The script index page features scripts myself & others have written. Most of the scripts are commented & come with tutorials. I've even provided .ved & resource files for some of them. The index also features my own hand typed vs player functions / commands & various workflow scripts, that I have provided for free. There's also a beginners guide to Lua script that I have been writing. If you already know action script & the basics of a C language then Lua should not be an issue for you to learn, plus a lot of other game engines have support for Lua too.

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