Topic: Since so many people here seem to use game maker.....

[BMC_War Machine]

Good suggestion... but you never actually told me WHERE I could find the tutorials.

It's been awhile since I have been on there, but if I remember right yoyogames.com is full of different styles of tutorials for game maker. Check that out.

[Esco]

It's been awhile since I have been on there, but if I remember right yoyogames.com is full of different styles of tutorials for game maker. Check that out.

Great! I actually found 2 already, so thanks for the heads up. And I have to say that looking thru the coding for one which has things like wall jumping, jumping thru platforms, and properly working wall collisions and slopes, that it looks very, VERY simple compared to what I am doing now. I can even understand the code just by looking at it for the most part, which is amazing to me.

I am also amazed at the precision of the hitboxes for sprites in the game; I had no idea that they could be pixel perfect like this. I always figured that they had to be square (that is how they work in SOTN and most games). .

[BMC_War Machine]

Lol no problem man! Just make sure to take baby steps with it though, if you jump in head first your gonna split your melon! Lol! Good luck!

[TheouAegis]

Also something to point out is GM's built-in functions are fail in many cases. Collision detection is a beast (the bad kind) in GM and you're better off programming your own collision detection scripts (GM8 made this easier to do, so you see a lot of custom scripts in GM8 games now). And the movement engine is useful but buggy, so I think a majority of games built these days are done with custom movement scripts as well.

What I'd like to see in GM is fast palette swapping. There are some custom scripts out there that simulate it, but they're slow.

[Esco]

Also something to point out is GM's built-in functions are fail in many cases. Collision detection is a beast (the bad kind) in GM and you're better off programming your own collision detection scripts (GM8 made this easier to do, so you see a lot of custom scripts in GM8 games now). And the movement engine is useful but buggy, so I think a majority of games built these days are done with custom movement scripts as well.

What I'd like to see in GM is fast palette swapping. There are some custom scripts out there that simulate it, but they're slow.

You sound like you know a bit about the intricacies of GM; would you mind helping to teach me a few things?

Right now I am trying to figure out what DLL I need to use mp3 music & sounds in my game and where to get it from (WAV files are just WAAAAAY too big and use up too many system resources).

[Kale]

I would think wave uses less resources as it doesn't have to decompress to play but plays as is... though I agree it would take up a lot of space.

[TheouAegis]

Waves are for sound effects. MP3s I think use NullSoft (WinAmp plug-in). You could probably just search GMC for "play mp3" and find them. There's a universal one that also lets you play (to a limited extent) NSF and SPC (Nintendo and Super Nintendo sound files).

[Esco]

Waves are for sound effects. MP3s I think use NullSoft (WinAmp plug-in). You could probably just search GMC for "play mp3" and find them. There's a universal one that also lets you play (to a limited extent) NSF and SPC (Nintendo and Super Nintendo sound files).

I searched for play mp3 and I found nothing already.

[Inccubus]

When you create a sound it lets you choose an MP3 and it is automatically set to be played by your default multimedia player on your system. They don't work as great as wav's or midi's for the purposes of looping and audio effects, but they make your game package smaller. There are extension packages that have support for other sound formats too though. IIRC you can use .ogg files too.

[TheouAegis]

GMSPC.dll lets you play SPC files. I forgot what I"m using for NSF files.
I would suggest going OGG though, since that seems to be more popular these days.

[Esco]

Well after some checking in SOTN itself, and with a LOT of help from Inccubus on how Gm works, I managed to so far exactly duplicate how richter walks, and jumps perfectly.

Also after looking thru the debugger in pcsx I now understand why everybody says that all of the engine's out there for movement like this in gamemaker feel somehow a little bit "off." Because it appears that so far, all of them might be missing some very tiny stuff involving movement.

But what they are missing seems so insignificant and funny that I honestly didn't think anything of it until I actually implemented it. Then I quickly could feel the difference in the controls.

Also judging by the coding and the fact that I did something in about 45 lines of code and in 30 minutes, that would take me about 500 lines of code hacking wise, and hours of hell, this may be the better option for the hack. But I won't know for sure until I try some more stuff. And I can already tell that the few 3d things in the game are going to give me a HUGE fukkin headache. lol

GMSPC.dll lets you play SPC files. I forgot what I"m using for NSF files.
I would suggest going OGG though, since that seems to be more popular these days.

I honestly don't care what is "popular," lol. What is most important to me is what is the most efficient framerate, processing, and ram wise (in that order). If you have any suggestions for TECHNICAL reasons I would love to hear them. I could use all the help I can get, man.  

[Claimh Solais]

Well, if you did it this way, it wouldn't be a hack anymore necessarily. It'd be a PC remake of the game. Which I honestly think would be cool for the reason that Game Maker doesn't take up as much RAM on my computer as a PSX emulator.

And also, if you did it this way, you could add a bunch of other stuff in that would have been too hard to do with the hack. For example, Maria as a playable character. Or maybe a way to choose which outfit of Richter's you play in. Not that I'm saying you have to, that'd be all up to you.

And I don't know shite about code, but I do believe that even the slightest thing missing can make a big difference. It's kinda like the butterfly effect, if you will. (:

[Esco]

Well, if you did it this way, it wouldn't be a hack anymore necessarily. It'd be a PC remake of the game. Which I honestly think would be cool for the reason that Game Maker doesn't take up as much RAM on my computer as a PSX emulator.

My understanding of GM resources wise is that how much ram it takes up is based on how much is in the game, and how much the coder himself takes resources into account (I am big on this; I like code that is efficient, concise, and only used as needed). So it could potentially take up more resources than an emulator. But as of now, I don't know. No worries there though, if it takes up a lot I can just ask what to improve on to make it take up less.

The good thing about this verses the hack is I have a lot of people to turn to for help when I need it.

And also, if you did it this way, you could add a bunch of other stuff in that would have been too hard to do with the hack. For example, Maria as a playable character. Or maybe a way to choose which outfit of Richter's you play in. Not that I'm saying you have to, that'd be all up to you.

Richter already has his old outfit in the intro of the hack, and the new one in the rest of the game.

And I don't know shite about code, but I do believe that even the slightest thing missing can make a big difference. It's kinda like the butterfly effect, if you will. (:

Lol, yup! That is definitely true.

[Claimh Solais]

There are some pretty darn big Game Maker games out there, but they load up flawlessly on my computer (one being bigger than a gig, that's bigger than SotN). Whereas with PSX, the emulator itself takes like 20 minutes to load. Don't get me started about the CGI scenes at the beginning of SotN. D:

Well, what I meant for the outfit was, like, for Richter mode. Like, when selecting him or typing in his name or whatever, you get a choice on what outfit he's wearing. Cuz you know, some people prefer the original RoB design over Ayami's (not me, I'm a big Ayami fan).

[Kale]

There are some pretty darn big Game Maker games out there, but they load up flawlessly on my computer (one being bigger than a gig, that's bigger than SotN). Whereas with PSX, the emulator itself takes like 20 minutes to load. Don't get me started about the CGI scenes at the beginning of SotN. D:

Well, what I meant for the outfit was, like, for Richter mode. Like, when selecting him or typing in his name or whatever, you get a choice on what outfit he's wearing. Cuz you know, some people prefer the original RoB design over Ayami's (not me, I'm a big Ayami fan).

What game is that? I've never really notice any game maker games around.