Really it seems like a bad idea to make an LLC until you really have a game together.
Incorrect.
An LLC is a legal entity that provides a person with all kinds of good leverage and tactics for business and finance. Having one puts no obligation on the owner in most states. Check your local laws. In Florida its completely burden-free.
What is a good site for the legal info on LLCs? Just the state gov site?
I've made a tutorial on how I implemented my floating object in UE4. You can also see some very early footage of the project I am currently working on.
Ahh.. That moment when you make a mistake in the code, and all the monsters start smashing eachother in the face like some behind the scenes argument just boiled over.
What would you Unity devs suggest as resources to get up to speed as quick as I can in Unity before Ludum Dare? I don't think opting for iOS would be a wise idea for LD so I figure I'd resume trying to learn Unity3d.
What would you Unity devs suggest as resources to get up to speed as quick as I can in Unity before Ludum Dare? I don't think opting for iOS would be a wise idea for LD so I figure I'd resume trying to learn Unity3d.
If you're not set on Unity, in our last LD @Mvrck and @Kusmeroglu used the opportunity to get acquainted with Unreal Engine 4. After the weekend they were quite proficient already Game jams are great for trying out new stuff like that!
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not
I'm using jQuery with it. I think the only things you'll really run into issues with using Awesomium is that dropdowns boxes require manual implementation and I think WebGL doesn't work with it.
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool. I can point to animations all over Borderlands 2 that would be 60 lines of crap code in JS, and one neat artists timeline in Flash
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool.
But we're talking about UI design and web animations, not production level things like Archer.
The pixelnest one seems to be the best 2D Unity demo. It is always recommended.
If you can get a tile engine in there you could whip up a Metroidvania game with 3D support and vector animation.
How do you do vector animation in Unity other than buying the Vectorsity plugin?
Oh. I thought it had an animation system that supported it. It seemed like it from the outside.
It has keyframe+tweening(legacy?), skeletal animation, and texture/sprite animation but as far as I know there isn't an included library for vector drawing or animation. To do that you need draw lines and quads/tris directly. I assume you can animate the properties of those drawings programmatically or maybe with the legacy animation system. It might be possible in Mechamin but that thing is still over my head.
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool.
But we're talking about UI design and web animations, not production level things like Archer.
Flash is still winning that battle. HTML5 is getting closer but it is not there yet.
HTML5 was created as a Flash killer but it's taking a long, long time to choke that fucker. And I will lay even money that it is Adobe that will eventually produce the tool of choice for doing all those things in HTML5 that used to be done in Flash.
Any comparison shots with the original? It's not like InFlux looked shabby to begin with and my memory of the game is not good enough to go "yep! I remember that texture, it's looking right sharp now".
When: August 22nd. Details: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/rules/ Summary: Make a game in 48 or 72 hours using a theme based on voting system. Current theme selection: http://www.ludumdare.com/theme - Be sure go through as many as you can, there are over 1300 to widdle down.
Warmup Weekend is also right now, which is basically just doing a quick short prototype of.. anything to get ready.
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool. I can point to animations all over Borderlands 2 that would be 60 lines of crap code in JS, and one neat artists timeline in Flash
You keep using JS in place of HTML5, and I don't think you mean to. HTML5 is what provides the programming model. JavaScript is just the language, and it's the SAME language Flash uses. Dirty secret: ActionScript is just JavaScript with a few Adobe extensions.
There is little stopping people from porting Flash's raster shape engine to HTML5, and in fact it's already being worked on from several different angles. And I was right about ScaleForm, they've been out and about talking about their eventual HTML5 change over as Flash slowly fades out and some of the tools (like a raster shapes library) in the HTML5 space mature.
Hi I'm new at this thread. As a hobby I want to give game development a try. I got gamemaker studio standard for free during one of their giveaway, but I also read that Unity is very popular. Although I have some basic knowledge in programming with java, I'm not sure whether I should use gamemaker or unity as a beginner. I'm solely focussing on a 2d game. I have read that Unity will ultimately provide more options, but is it a bigger hurdle and you have to buy some assets. I'm trying to asses which one would be more suitable in my situation: No budget and only 2d game. What are your experiences regarding creating 2d games in gamemaker and in unity? Thanks in advance.
johnwing on
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MachwingIt looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it?Left in this cave to rot ... or to flower!Registered Userregular
Hi I'm new at this thread. As a hobby I want to give game development a try. I got gamemaker studio standard for free during one of their giveaway, but I also read that Unity is very popular. Although I have some basic knowledge in programming with java, I'm not sure whether I should use gamemaker or unity as a beginner. I'm solely focussing on a 2d game. I have read that Unity will ultimately provide more options, but is it a bigger hurdle and you have to buy some assets. I'm trying to asses which one would be more suitable in my situation: No budget and only 2d game. What are your experiences regarding creating 2d games in gamemaker and in unity? Thanks in advance.
You don't need to buy anything to build a working game in Unity, but certain things you might take for granted, like dynamic lights, require an investment or your own programming efforts.
If you're interested in executing a specific game idea and gamemaker has the tools to do so, pursue it. If you're interested in developing more broadly useful programming skills, I'd recommend Unity. If you're interested in game development purely from a design perspective (and are only pursuing art and programming to facilitate your design), Gamemaker will work. If you're interested in art and programming on their own merits (and more applications for those skills down the road), pick up Unity.
I'm going to go ahead and pitch Unity as an excellent step towards working on games beyond the project you're initially interested in (2D, 3D, any genre, any team size, etc. etc.). My understanding is that gamemaker will prepare you to make more games... in gamemaker.
You're forgetting Unreal Engine, which has all the tools that you have to pay a hefty premium for with Unity, included in the basic 19$/€ package. If you're a beginner without extensive programming experience, or if the programming part doesn't appeal to you that much, Unreal is definitely the way to go. But even if your interests lie in that part, Unreal also includes full access to the engine's source code in those 19$. There's really no better engine for beginners currently.
Unity still has a few things going for it though, mind. Mainly, it (still) has better 2D tools, and more established mobile platform support. UE4 still needs (and is getting) a bit of love from Epic before UE4 beats Unity on mobile.
Mainly broad Android support, and smaller file sizes. Works pretty great for iOS as far as I've heard, but I don't have any I devices to experiment with it myself.
I've been messing about with it on Android on a Nexus 5 and it's been very very smooth. Actually I just got done deploying a new build! Might post a screenshot
Hi I'm new at this thread. As a hobby I want to give game development a try. I got gamemaker studio standard for free during one of their giveaway, but I also read that Unity is very popular. Although I have some basic knowledge in programming with java, I'm not sure whether I should use gamemaker or unity as a beginner. I'm solely focussing on a 2d game. I have read that Unity will ultimately provide more options, but is it a bigger hurdle and you have to buy some assets. I'm trying to asses which one would be more suitable in my situation: No budget and only 2d game. What are your experiences regarding creating 2d games in gamemaker and in unity? Thanks in advance.
You are in the boat I was ~2 years ago when I started this whole thing. The advice I'll give you is what I wish a time traveling self had given me when I first started. Don't start with a game as your goal. Start with the goal that you want to be a game developer. Make ANY game and the skills you learn will teach you how to make EVERY game. Your first game is allowed to suck but it isn't allowed to be unfinished. Make the easiest concept you can think of and polish the hell out of it.
My opinion is that unless you are coming into this knowing 3D modeling you should start entirely in 2D. From my totally ignorant perspective 3D modeling/texturing/lighting/animation seems like a profession in itself and isn't something you want to learn simultaneously with game making.
Even with that said I would suggest starting with a Unity2d tutorial as your first "learning" project. The reason is that Unity has the biggest community of any engine and also a rep-whoring stackoverflowish question and answer system that ensures noob questions get answers right away.
Once you do your first tutorial in Unity then you can try some other engines to compare. My personal darling right now is Stencyl http://stencyl.com/ which lets you make games without known any language syntax at all.
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool. I can point to animations all over Borderlands 2 that would be 60 lines of crap code in JS, and one neat artists timeline in Flash
You keep using JS in place of HTML5, and I don't think you mean to. HTML5 is what provides the programming model. JavaScript is just the language, and it's the SAME language Flash uses. Dirty secret: ActionScript is just JavaScript with a few Adobe extensions.
There is little stopping people from porting Flash's raster shape engine to HTML5, and in fact it's already being worked on from several different angles. And I was right about ScaleForm, they've been out and about talking about their eventual HTML5 change over as Flash slowly fades out and some of the tools (like a raster shapes library) in the HTML5 space mature.
sorry dude but you need more information about Flash's drawing tools. You cannot morph or path shapes in any web standard technology like you can in Flash with comparable levels of ease. Nothing in the HTML5/CSS3 suite I've seen comes close to the depth and robustness of shape tweening in Flash
Adobe's own HTML5 answer for Flash (Edge) doesn't even bother to attempt to emulate half of those features, and it has a terrible scripting interface to boot. I'd rather seppuku.
Hi I'm new at this thread. As a hobby I want to give game development a try. I got gamemaker studio standard for free during one of their giveaway, but I also read that Unity is very popular. Although I have some basic knowledge in programming with java, I'm not sure whether I should use gamemaker or unity as a beginner. I'm solely focussing on a 2d game. I have read that Unity will ultimately provide more options, but is it a bigger hurdle and you have to buy some assets. I'm trying to asses which one would be more suitable in my situation: No budget and only 2d game. What are your experiences regarding creating 2d games in gamemaker and in unity? Thanks in advance.
You don't need to buy anything to build a working game in Unity, but certain things you might take for granted, like dynamic lights, require an investment or your own programming efforts.
If you're interested in executing a specific game idea and gamemaker has the tools to do so, pursue it. If you're interested in developing more broadly useful programming skills, I'd recommend Unity. If you're interested in game development purely from a design perspective (and are only pursuing art and programming to facilitate your design), Gamemaker will work. If you're interested in art and programming on their own merits (and more applications for those skills down the road), pick up Unity.
I'm going to go ahead and pitch Unity as an excellent step towards working on games beyond the project you're initially interested in (2D, 3D, any genre, any team size, etc. etc.). My understanding is that gamemaker will prepare you to make more games... in gamemaker.
Thanks for the advice. It would be nice to learn some other skills too with unity.
Hi I'm new at this thread. As a hobby I want to give game development a try. I got gamemaker studio standard for free during one of their giveaway, but I also read that Unity is very popular. Although I have some basic knowledge in programming with java, I'm not sure whether I should use gamemaker or unity as a beginner. I'm solely focussing on a 2d game. I have read that Unity will ultimately provide more options, but is it a bigger hurdle and you have to buy some assets. I'm trying to asses which one would be more suitable in my situation: No budget and only 2d game. What are your experiences regarding creating 2d games in gamemaker and in unity? Thanks in advance.
You are in the boat I was ~2 years ago when I started this whole thing. The advice I'll give you is what I wish a time traveling self had given me when I first started. Don't start with a game as your goal. Start with the goal that you want to be a game developer. Make ANY game and the skills you learn will teach you how to make EVERY game. Your first game is allowed to suck but it isn't allowed to be unfinished. Make the easiest concept you can think of and polish the hell out of it.
My opinion is that unless you are coming into this knowing 3D modeling you should start entirely in 2D. From my totally ignorant perspective 3D modeling/texturing/lighting/animation seems like a profession in itself and isn't something you want to learn simultaneously with game making.
Even with that said I would suggest starting with a Unity2d tutorial as your first "learning" project. The reason is that Unity has the biggest community of any engine and also a rep-whoring stackoverflowish question and answer system that ensures noob questions get answers right away.
Once you do your first tutorial in Unity then you can try some other engines to compare. My personal darling right now is Stencyl http://stencyl.com/ which lets you make games without known any language syntax at all.
Good luck, feel free to post questions in thread.
Thanks. I think I will go for Unity then. Although it seems very daunting.
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool. I can point to animations all over Borderlands 2 that would be 60 lines of crap code in JS, and one neat artists timeline in Flash
You keep using JS in place of HTML5, and I don't think you mean to. HTML5 is what provides the programming model. JavaScript is just the language, and it's the SAME language Flash uses. Dirty secret: ActionScript is just JavaScript with a few Adobe extensions.
There is little stopping people from porting Flash's raster shape engine to HTML5, and in fact it's already being worked on from several different angles. And I was right about ScaleForm, they've been out and about talking about their eventual HTML5 change over as Flash slowly fades out and some of the tools (like a raster shapes library) in the HTML5 space mature.
sorry dude but you need more information about Flash's drawing tools. You cannot morph or path shapes in any web standard technology like you can in Flash with comparable levels of ease. Nothing in the HTML5/CSS3 suite I've seen comes close to the depth and robustness of shape tweening in Flash
Adobe's own HTML5 answer for Flash (Edge) doesn't even bother to attempt to emulate half of those features, and it has a terrible scripting interface to boot. I'd rather seppuku.
Again, what exactly are you trying to do when you are talking about this? We're talking about making a game UI with some basic animations, not some full length animated feature. The time and cost investment of Flash and Scaleform may be worth it for a large studio, for for an indie/hobbyist, Flash is woefully useless in terms of development time, especially for someone who's background is in programming rather than art or animation. Being able to plug Two.js, Snap.svg into a library like Awesomium is a much better solution for most people that trying to learn Flash, at basically the same overhead performance wise.
Eh, I dunno, ScaleForm is basically a re-implementation of Flash/ActionScript. Not really sure what ScaleForm buys you now that HTML5 and EcmaScript 5 are in the wild (and things like Awsomium exists). Basically anyone who can make SWF files can make HTML5 UI's.
I won't be surprised at all when ScaleForm announces their own HTML5 product (if they haven't already) as Flash begins to wind down as a technology.
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool. I can point to animations all over Borderlands 2 that would be 60 lines of crap code in JS, and one neat artists timeline in Flash
You keep using JS in place of HTML5, and I don't think you mean to. HTML5 is what provides the programming model. JavaScript is just the language, and it's the SAME language Flash uses. Dirty secret: ActionScript is just JavaScript with a few Adobe extensions.
There is little stopping people from porting Flash's raster shape engine to HTML5, and in fact it's already being worked on from several different angles. And I was right about ScaleForm, they've been out and about talking about their eventual HTML5 change over as Flash slowly fades out and some of the tools (like a raster shapes library) in the HTML5 space mature.
sorry dude but you need more information about Flash's drawing tools. You cannot morph or path shapes in any web standard technology like you can in Flash with comparable levels of ease. Nothing in the HTML5/CSS3 suite I've seen comes close to the depth and robustness of shape tweening in Flash
Adobe's own HTML5 answer for Flash (Edge) doesn't even bother to attempt to emulate half of those features, and it has a terrible scripting interface to boot. I'd rather seppuku.
Again, what exactly are you trying to do when you are talking about this? We're talking about making a game UI with some basic animations, not some full length animated feature. The time and cost investment of Flash and Scaleform may be worth it for a large studio, for for an indie/hobbyist, Flash is woefully useless in terms of development time, especially for someone who's background is in programming rather than art or animation. Being able to plug Two.js, Snap.svg into a library like Awesomium is a much better solution for most people that trying to learn Flash, at basically the same overhead performance wise.
There's a whole category of GUI animation that rests between "basic animation" and "a feature length cartoon".
I guess it depends on your definition of what "basic" is and what you're content with. Flash is adept (please read "adept" as "both capable and effortless") at things like pathed animation (moving a shape on a curve, not just in a straight line), complex short-duration animations like button flashes, rumbles, etc (again, see Borderlands), deformable shape tweening (taking a circle and making it a square without having to export a PNG of every frame of that animation).
I don't know where the argument that Flash takes longer to develop for originates from. It's obscenely easy to get things on a screen with Flash.
I don't understand the enthusiasm for a tool that does categorically less for no obvious benefit other than the specious logic of "not flash, therefor better".
I've shipped graphics and animations projects in Flash, Edge, CSS3, and hand-coded Javascript on the Canvas. Flash still trumps them all where productivity and scope are paramount.
There are tradeoffs. Unless ScaleForm solves for it, Flash is bad at efficient resolution downsampling. There's the obvious mobile constraint. After that, the list becomes debatable.
So I'm making a top down, 2D game about tactical space combat. If you are familiar with StarSector (formerly StarFarer) or SPAZ, think that mixed with the old StarTrek Starfleet Command games, and alot of my own takes on how to do things to make it unique. I'm really excited about it and I've been trucking along pretty well for a few months, no major problems (yet).
However, after seeing what the amazing dude over at the Shallow Space built in it sees like the same time frame, I feel rather lame. I wonder, will anyone care about a game that's just 2D? I chose 2D because I'm just one guy and 2D art is far faster to do than 3D, even though I have plenty of 3D space ship design experience. Further even though it's 2D, I have alot of ideas about how to make the gameplay very tactically deep.
I guess I'm just worried that people will see that it's 2D and either not care about it because the graphics aren't super awesome 3D or assume it's not very good because it's "just a 2D game".
DarkMecha on
Steam Profile | My Art | NID: DarkMecha (SW-4787-9571-8977) | PSN: DarkMecha
Posts
What is a good site for the legal info on LLCs? Just the state gov site?
Steam: Handkor
I found this 2d tutorial that is fairly straightforward http://pixelnest.io/tutorials/2d-game-unity/ (well google found it but I'm bringing it to you!)
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
If you can get a tile engine in there you could whip up a Metroidvania game with 3D support and vector animation.
How do you do vector animation in Unity other than buying the Vectorsity plugin?
it doesn't matter how fast javascript gets nor how many jquery patches and CSS specs get released and supported, there will never be a replacement for the awesome might and convenience of Flash's drawing and animation tools.
In Flash you can draw amorphous, contoured shapes with ease and animate them in mere seconds, and a software rasterizer does the math for you
lets you very easily create interesting gui component shapes with less busy work
Oh. I thought it had an animation system that supported it. It seemed like it from the outside.
I have no idea if it's even possible to tie other javascript libraries into Awesomeonium or not, but HTML5/Javascript support for SVG animations and modifications are pretty much at the level of Flash now, if not better (because fuck action script). Snap SVG is absolutely amazing for example.
This was built with Snap.
SVG isn't a replacement (in my opinion) for what Flash can do. Flash has a really cool raster shape sculpting tool that allows you to do highly detailed frame-by-frame animations. Premium shit.
JS is still basically in the "here's a shape, tween it" realm. Not that it's not functional, but there's a reason Flash still exists as a professional tool. I can point to animations all over Borderlands 2 that would be 60 lines of crap code in JS, and one neat artists timeline in Flash
But we're talking about UI design and web animations, not production level things like Archer.
It has keyframe+tweening(legacy?), skeletal animation, and texture/sprite animation but as far as I know there isn't an included library for vector drawing or animation. To do that you need draw lines and quads/tris directly. I assume you can animate the properties of those drawings programmatically or maybe with the legacy animation system. It might be possible in Mechamin but that thing is still over my head.
Flash is still winning that battle. HTML5 is getting closer but it is not there yet.
HTML5 was created as a Flash killer but it's taking a long, long time to choke that fucker. And I will lay even money that it is Adobe that will eventually produce the tool of choice for doing all those things in HTML5 that used to be done in Flash.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Hot (literally) damn. That looks awesome.
http://www.meetup.com/hac-dc/events/197976622/
It will be general game development and a very basic demo of the Stencyl engine specifically making a game end to end.
When: August 22nd.
Details: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/rules/
Summary: Make a game in 48 or 72 hours using a theme based on voting system.
Current theme selection: http://www.ludumdare.com/theme - Be sure go through as many as you can, there are over 1300 to widdle down.
Warmup Weekend is also right now, which is basically just doing a quick short prototype of.. anything to get ready.
Hope to see you guys make something!
http://www.4gamer.net/games/216/G021678/20140714079/
http://www.4gamer.net/games/216/G021678/20140703095/
I hate fighting games and have no particular love for anime, but what they're doing with those shaders has me all hot and bothered
You keep using JS in place of HTML5, and I don't think you mean to. HTML5 is what provides the programming model. JavaScript is just the language, and it's the SAME language Flash uses. Dirty secret: ActionScript is just JavaScript with a few Adobe extensions.
There is little stopping people from porting Flash's raster shape engine to HTML5, and in fact it's already being worked on from several different angles. And I was right about ScaleForm, they've been out and about talking about their eventual HTML5 change over as Flash slowly fades out and some of the tools (like a raster shapes library) in the HTML5 space mature.
You don't need to buy anything to build a working game in Unity, but certain things you might take for granted, like dynamic lights, require an investment or your own programming efforts.
If you're interested in executing a specific game idea and gamemaker has the tools to do so, pursue it. If you're interested in developing more broadly useful programming skills, I'd recommend Unity. If you're interested in game development purely from a design perspective (and are only pursuing art and programming to facilitate your design), Gamemaker will work. If you're interested in art and programming on their own merits (and more applications for those skills down the road), pick up Unity.
I'm going to go ahead and pitch Unity as an excellent step towards working on games beyond the project you're initially interested in (2D, 3D, any genre, any team size, etc. etc.). My understanding is that gamemaker will prepare you to make more games... in gamemaker.
Unity still has a few things going for it though, mind. Mainly, it (still) has better 2D tools, and more established mobile platform support. UE4 still needs (and is getting) a bit of love from Epic before UE4 beats Unity on mobile.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
weeeee
You are in the boat I was ~2 years ago when I started this whole thing. The advice I'll give you is what I wish a time traveling self had given me when I first started. Don't start with a game as your goal. Start with the goal that you want to be a game developer. Make ANY game and the skills you learn will teach you how to make EVERY game. Your first game is allowed to suck but it isn't allowed to be unfinished. Make the easiest concept you can think of and polish the hell out of it.
My opinion is that unless you are coming into this knowing 3D modeling you should start entirely in 2D. From my totally ignorant perspective 3D modeling/texturing/lighting/animation seems like a profession in itself and isn't something you want to learn simultaneously with game making.
Even with that said I would suggest starting with a Unity2d tutorial as your first "learning" project. The reason is that Unity has the biggest community of any engine and also a rep-whoring stackoverflowish question and answer system that ensures noob questions get answers right away.
Once you do your first tutorial in Unity then you can try some other engines to compare. My personal darling right now is Stencyl http://stencyl.com/ which lets you make games without known any language syntax at all.
Good luck, feel free to post questions in thread.
sorry dude but you need more information about Flash's drawing tools. You cannot morph or path shapes in any web standard technology like you can in Flash with comparable levels of ease. Nothing in the HTML5/CSS3 suite I've seen comes close to the depth and robustness of shape tweening in Flash
Adobe's own HTML5 answer for Flash (Edge) doesn't even bother to attempt to emulate half of those features, and it has a terrible scripting interface to boot. I'd rather seppuku.
Thanks for the advice. It would be nice to learn some other skills too with unity.
Thanks. I think I will go for Unity then. Although it seems very daunting.
Again, what exactly are you trying to do when you are talking about this? We're talking about making a game UI with some basic animations, not some full length animated feature. The time and cost investment of Flash and Scaleform may be worth it for a large studio, for for an indie/hobbyist, Flash is woefully useless in terms of development time, especially for someone who's background is in programming rather than art or animation. Being able to plug Two.js, Snap.svg into a library like Awesomium is a much better solution for most people that trying to learn Flash, at basically the same overhead performance wise.
There's a whole category of GUI animation that rests between "basic animation" and "a feature length cartoon".
I guess it depends on your definition of what "basic" is and what you're content with. Flash is adept (please read "adept" as "both capable and effortless") at things like pathed animation (moving a shape on a curve, not just in a straight line), complex short-duration animations like button flashes, rumbles, etc (again, see Borderlands), deformable shape tweening (taking a circle and making it a square without having to export a PNG of every frame of that animation).
I don't know where the argument that Flash takes longer to develop for originates from. It's obscenely easy to get things on a screen with Flash.
I don't understand the enthusiasm for a tool that does categorically less for no obvious benefit other than the specious logic of "not flash, therefor better".
I've shipped graphics and animations projects in Flash, Edge, CSS3, and hand-coded Javascript on the Canvas. Flash still trumps them all where productivity and scope are paramount.
There are tradeoffs. Unless ScaleForm solves for it, Flash is bad at efficient resolution downsampling. There's the obvious mobile constraint. After that, the list becomes debatable.
However, after seeing what the amazing dude over at the Shallow Space built in it sees like the same time frame, I feel rather lame. I wonder, will anyone care about a game that's just 2D? I chose 2D because I'm just one guy and 2D art is far faster to do than 3D, even though I have plenty of 3D space ship design experience. Further even though it's 2D, I have alot of ideas about how to make the gameplay very tactically deep.
I guess I'm just worried that people will see that it's 2D and either not care about it because the graphics aren't super awesome 3D or assume it's not very good because it's "just a 2D game".