Goji Game Maker for Marmalade v1.8.5b out now

As a small Christmas gift I have decided to port some neat Booty5 changes over to the AppEasy Core and Goji Editor. I’ve listed the changes to 1.8.5b below:

  • Added new “clone to all scenes” menu action which will clone an Icon / Label to all scenes
  • Added new “delete from all scenes” menu action which will remove all Icons / Labels from all scenes that share the same name as the selected item
  • Added new “copy to scene” which clones the selected actor into a new scene
  • Added support for filled / unfilled ellipses and rects / rounded rects
  • Added new Filled, CornerRadius and Thickness properties to actors
  • Updated actors to support bitmap animation frames, actor properties now support frames property which can be use to change default frame order
  • ImageActor XOML tag has new Filled (bool) property which specifies the filled / unfilled status of an actor, unfilled will be drawn with a border
  • ImageActor XOML tag has new CornerRadius (float) property which can be used to specify the corner size of a rounded rect (note that RenderAs must be set to 2) to force actor to be rendered as a rect
  • ImageActor XOML tag has new Thickness (float) property which specifies the border thickness for actors that are rendered unfilled
  • ImageActor XOML tag has new RenderAs (int) property which specifies how the actor should be rendered, 0 – normal, 1 – render as an arc and 2 – render as a rect / rounded rect
  • ImageActor XOML tag has new PlaybackSpeed property which specifies how quickly any attached bitmap animation will play back
  • ImageActor XOML tag has new AnimFrames (array of its) property which specifies the order in which bitmap frames are played back
  • Brush XOML tag has new RectFrames property which is a list of x,y,w,h rect frames that can be used to assign bitmap animations to actors

The most exciting changes (for me at least) are the addition of support for rendering arcs, rectangles and rounded rectangles, these can be filled with solid colour / bitmaps or rendered with an edge stroke that can also be solid colour or bitmapped. I found that these objects come in very useful when it comes to UI. If you look in the actors property panel in Goji you will notice a new “RenderAs” property. Changing this enables you to tell the engine to override the default rendering to render the actor as an arc or rect. Additional properties have been added to allow you to specify properties such as corner radius for rounded rects and thickness. If you are interested in seeing the code that generates these shapes then take a look in CzGeometry.cpp.

Another addition that I decided to port across was bitmap brush animations. Its awkward having to set up bitmap animations in XOML so I made it easier. You can now add individual rectangular frames to a brush to create an animation (Goji shows a preview of the animation). Once the brush is attached to an actor an as long as the Playback speed is set to something other than 0 then the animation will play. You can also override the order in which animation frames are played by setting your own animation frame indices in the Anim Frames properties box.

 

 

 

 

Booty5 v1.8.5b out now – Cached rendering and Marmalade SDK Audio Support

Well the proof is in the eating and not the making. I’ve spent some time putting together a small game using Booty5 called Leapo that I will eventually distribute as an example of how to use Booty5. Whilst developing this game I have come across various issues or missing features, hence this update.

Booty5 game engine changes:

  • Added new Actor setPositionPhysics() and setRotationPhysics() to set associated physics body position and rotation directly
  • Added new utils class that contains utility functions
  • Fixed actor and scene sorting using new sorting method in Utils called sortLayers()
  • Added new property to TheApp called use_marm which should be set to true if deploying to mobile using the Marmalade SDK
  • Added new property to Sound constructor called reuse which can be used to force the sound effect to be reused (only useful for short sound effects at may not play if one is already playing)
  • Added new stop / pause methods to Sound class, only usable with reusable sounds
  • Sound class will now use the powerful Marmalade audio system instead of standard, if its available
  • Added new method TheApp.parseAndSetFocus(scene_name) which parses xoml JSON and sets the named scene as the current scene
  • TimelineManager.add() now returns the timeline that was added
  • Scene.addActor() now returns the added actor
  • Actor.addActor() now returns the added actor
  • TheApp.addScene() now returns the added scene
  • ParticleActor.addParticle() now returns the added particle
  • Main loop timer replaced with requestAnimationFrame for smoother rendering
  • TheApp now measures average frame rate via avg_fps property
  • TheApp has new property called adaptive_physics which will run physics update multiple times within a single frame if frame rate falls considerably outside target frame rate
  • Actors can now all be cached by setting cache property to true. When cached the actor will be rendered only once to an off screen canvas, subsequent rendering will be of the cached version. note that the Size of the actor as specified by its properties will determine the size of the cached canvas area. In the case of unfilled actors, the allocated size will be slightly larger to allow for stroke thickness. Note that shadows and composite operations are not cached

Booty5 game editor changes:

  • ExportName Scene property is now saved and restored correctly
  • Load scene property now cloned correctly
  • Target frame rate now exported
  • Fixed main.js for Marmalade SDK export, also now copy wb.js over from SDK into build folder
  • Marmalade native audio will be used in place of standard audio if available
  • Added new property to Sound resource called reuse
  • Added new project property called Adaptive Physics which can be used to run physics multiple times per game update
  • Unfilled rounded rects with corner radius now render properly
  • Actors can now be marked as cached which causes them to be rendered once to an off screen canvas
  • Added new measure button next to size property in properties panel, this will set the actors size to the extents of any attached geometry
  • Exported main.js will now wait until resources are loaded before starting TheApp

Whilst all of the above changes are a positive, one of the more important changes includes caching of actors for rendering. HTML5 is not particularly fast (especially on mobile) at rendering things like gradients and shapes. Actors can now be marked as cached which will force them to be rendered once to an off-screen surface, subsequent renders will render the cached version. When deployed via Marmalade Web I am seeing a good 30-60 fps frame rate for Leapo on an iPhone 5C.

You can download Booty5 HTML5 game maker for free from here

Goji Editor v1.8.4b out now

The Goji editor has had a new update today, mainly to bring the features more in line with Booty5. Changes include:

  • Added Support for ALT Tab to switch between previous / last resource
  • Added image preview to Icon background property
  • You can now select most resources directly in the object properties panel
  • Added shape editor
  • Added shape shape bitmap tracer and mesh optimiser
  • Concave fixtures are now exported as multiple convex fixtures
  • Changed code editor font to fixed size
  • Fixed actor insert crash bug
  • Fixed script / image auto reload
  • Fixed main canvas scaling
  • Fixed various export options
  • Fixed geometry not updating correctly bug
  • Fixed auto shut down of editor when clicking close button on are you sure dialog
  • Fixed deployment with Marmalade free license
  • Main changes relate to usability / productivity, just making things a little easier to use. Also the addition of the shape editor makes it possible to create physics shapes and geometries within Goji, avoiding the need for an additional shape editor.

    You can download a free copy of the Goj Game Editor here