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eski



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9th July, 2010 at 00:50:42 -

I want my player and all moving sprites to have smooth movements in my game.
When i use the platform movement that is in MMF, well its just laggy.
I have seen many games made with MMF that have very smooth movements, just not the source.

I was wondering what was the first thing that i need to consider when making a custom movement on a sprite.
What is the best way to achieve this goal, basicly to have the sprite move around smootly without the sprite images to be blurry or all jiggery like on the platform movement type.
Is this somehow related to the Frame rate on the application ?

Its hard to describe this problem but i get these results for example when moving a simple sprite in Flash or with the default movements behaviour in Construct.


 
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Assault Andy

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9th July, 2010 at 01:14:29 -

I think I know what you're talking about and it could indeed be related to Frame Rate. Have you tried enabling VSync?

 
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eski



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9th July, 2010 at 02:21:24 -

Yaubb, Vsync on/off does'nt matter. And not the machine independent speed thing also.
I have a super computer so that is not the problem.

Its like the basic movements draw the sprites somehow weird when moving.
When they move in a straight line they go like 20px per second but it looks like they go and jump a little further like 20px + 2-3px. Its like the timeline on the movement is somehow laggy.

God damn, its hard to explain this.

 
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9th July, 2010 at 02:39:14 -

Could you build an exe for me? And have you had any experience making custom engines before?

 
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9th July, 2010 at 08:01:22 -

Have you tried disabling some fast loops? I know those can add up and really bring a game to it's knee's.

 
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eski



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9th July, 2010 at 22:19:32 -

Allright, first off, i dont know how to make a custom movement thing.
I'm just asking what i should mind when starting to make them.

In this zip file i have two .exe that i maked.
One is from MMF and has a build in movement.
The other one is from Construct, build in movement but much smoother.

The one in MMF well you can see that the sprite is all shaky when its moved.
Is this something i can fix with "frame rate" or with custom movements and something more ?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4436588/balls.zip

 
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10th July, 2010 at 07:40:18 -

Built in movement sucks, learn custom.. it's really not that hard. I mean if you're going to take as big of a short cut as to use a large program like MMF to make your game for you, the least you could do is take some control over how it's actually done.

 
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eski



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10th July, 2010 at 10:42:41 -

I know i need to use custom movements in MMF to get a smooth move.
If you would read my first post you would see that I am asking about custom movements.

Do i have to change the default settings og the mmf application (frame rate, machine independent speed ....) ?
Do i use fastloops making a custom moves ?
What are the do's and dont's ?
How would i go by geting the ball-construct.exe movement in MMF ?

In the .exe files i used the build in movements to demostrate a point.


 
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10th July, 2010 at 15:39:47 -

If there is anything I learned from DavidN's tutorial, it is that you can use fastloops to make it nice.

http://www.clickteam.com/website/usa/img/uploads/tutorials/download/fastloop_plattutorial.zip

You'd use a fastloop that detects backdrops and other collisions and then forces your character out so that they aren't stuck in the ground, walls, or ceiling.

Besides that, you'd also use FrameRate to make sure that the object doesn't move more than a certain amount of pixels per loop. For example, if a speed of 200 means that your object should move 200 pixels per second, then you would have the object move 200/FrameRate pixels at a time. If the framerate were 50, that would be 4 pixels per loop.

You shouldn't have to change any of the default settings of the application, but if you change the FrameRate after having done what I just said, things will look smoother and still move the same amount. Of course, if you increase the frame rate, you'll make performance drop on weaker computers.

I just got done making this the other day; it uses fastloops for collision detection and checks FrameRate for movement (although you wouldn't be able to tell.) You can use the arrow keys to move, Shift to jump, and R to restart it.



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GamesterXIII



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10th July, 2010 at 19:47:11 -


Originally Posted by Jon Lambert
If there is anything I learned from DavidN's tutorial, it is that you'll need fastloops to make it nice.

http://www.clickteam.com/website/usa/img/uploads/tutorials/download/fastloop_plattutorial.zip




You do not need fastloops to make a smooth, bugless, custom engine. Just about anything you can do with fastloops can be done without fastloops.

Edited by GamesterXIII

 
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Jon Lambert

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10th July, 2010 at 22:42:24 -


Originally Posted by GamesterXIII

Originally Posted by Jon Lambert
If there is anything I learned from DavidN's tutorial, it is that you'll need fastloops to make it nice.

http://www.clickteam.com/website/usa/img/uploads/tutorials/download/fastloop_plattutorial.zip




You do not need fastloops to make a smooth, bugless, custom engine. Just about anything you can do with fastloops can be done without fastloops.

Fixed it. I usually don't make claims like that. Anyways, if you could whip up a quick example to teach us all, I'm sure I'd learn something.

 
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Sketchy

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10th July, 2010 at 22:46:44 -


Originally Posted by Jon Lambert
If there is anything I learned from DavidN's tutorial, it is that you'll need fastloops to make it nice.

http://www.clickteam.com/website/usa/img/uploads/tutorials/download/fastloop_plattutorial.zip



That's really not a good example to follow. It uses fastloops where they're not needed, making it inefficient and hard to use with duplicates (eg. enemy objects), it uses a detector object (again, not duplicate-friendly), and it's not smooth because it doesn't even store the coordinates as floats.

Fastloops are useful for pushing objects out of obstacles, but they're not needed for the movement itself.

The standard refresh rate of most monitors is 60 hertz, so there's no point setting your game's framerate any higher than 60fps. To be able to achieve that framerate even on old computers, you may need to code your engine quite efficiently (ie. DO NOT use a lot of fastloops) and use hardware acceleration.

One of the most important things to remember when trying to make a smooth custom movement of any kind, is to store everything in alterable values.
The built-in X/Y position properties only hold integers (whole numbers). That means that if you have an object with a speed of 1.8 pixels per frame, it will actually move exactly 2 pixels because it gets rounded up. Similarly, if the speed is 0.4 ppf the object won't move at all.
You get around this by using alterable values to store the object position, and then set the actual X and Y coordinates to those alterable values after.

 
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Jon Lambert

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10th July, 2010 at 22:57:51 -


Originally Posted by Sketchy
That's really not a good example to follow. It uses fastloops where they're not needed, making it inefficient and hard to use with duplicates (eg. enemy objects), it uses a detector object (again, not duplicate-friendly), and it's not smooth because it doesn't even store the coordinates as floats.

Fastloops are useful for pushing objects out of obstacles, but they're not needed for the movement itself.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, about using values for position storage. I used fastloops for collision detection as well as angle detection and sticking to the ground in that engine. I just used that example because it teaches the use of fastloops for collision detection.

So yeah, you would use alterable values or other such things to store values that represent the X and Y positions, and then you would have the X and Y positions set to those values. I also made my engine reliant upon a number of alterable values that determine how you move. In that engine, I used values for acceleration, deceleration, maximum x and y velocities, gravity, jump strength, jump endurance, lateral recoil (that is, how far your character is pushed if you jump off of sloped ground), as well as storing X and Y velocities in separate values, so that I can manipulate virtually all traits of the engine at runtime, making things like temporary speed or jump boosts easier to implement.

 
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eski



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11th July, 2010 at 02:10:53 -

Ah, so the build in movements in MMF use integers ?
Would explain why they are so weird


 
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Sketchy

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11th July, 2010 at 15:27:11 -

Actually, I don't think the custom movements do use integers to store the object positions - only variables such as speed (1 speed unit = 8 pixels per frame; meaning speed is variable in increments of 0.125 ppf).

It's just a very common mistake that people often make when trying to create custom movements.

 
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