[Shifty Geezer]

I've been told they are all getting removed. I made the music with the sequencer - it wouldn't be a proper test otherwise! You'll notice that the music cuts out half-way through, despite it supposed to loop continuously, and it behaves better in the editor. There are other bugs reported. I really hope they get them sorted because synchronising to rhythm can be a real game-maker.

[Cornsnake]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Strangely to use paint you ahve to capture it like LBP1; it's not available as a projectile by default. And it doesn't work as a projectile with sensors either and you have to use a Paintinator sensor, which means the enemy flashes when hit even if you don't want him to. I'm sure the crab would fluster a lot of people as you have to shoot the arms first before it's vulnerable, and the only way I figures to show that easily was pain sounds, but it'd be very easy for a player to hammer the middle with shots seeing him flash and not know it wasn't hurting!

You can make a paintball detectable by the impact sensor. Just tweak the impact sensor so that it needs a tag to work. Attach the same colour tag to the paintball, and tweak it with a label that says "impact".

[Shifty Geezer]

I tried that. My paintballs have a cyan tag on, but AFACT the impact didn't work the same, such that it didn't register as an impact. Although I may have had something rigged wrong.

[Cornsnake]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I tried that. My paintballs have a cyan tag on, but AFACT the impact didn't work the same, such that it didn't register as an impact. Although I may have had something rigged wrong.

And you sure you had the tag labelled with "impact" aswell? It won't work without it. In any case it's easier just to show it. I made a little test setup and send it to you.

[Shifty Geezer]

Ah, okay. I think I just had a collision with an unlabelled tag. That suggests to me a hierarchy of events that has tag collision > paint collision > untagged collision. There are quite a few mechanics like this that are important to take into account. eg. Running logic output to a destroyer and other stuff like a sound or emitter, the destroyer takes precedent and the object is destroyed before the sound played or object emitted. I get around that with a 0.1 second timing delay. You can trigger sounds on destruction but then it's not selective what destroyed it.

Although something I should do more of is package bits of events into logic chips and enable/disable them. If a sound is set to play on destruction, and is in the logic chip that's switched off, it shouldn't play.

I'm wondering if LBP2 is actually the ideal embodiment of object-oriented coding!

[Cornsnake]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Ah, okay. I think I just had a collision with an unlabelled tag. That suggests to me a hierarchy of events that has tag collision > paint collision > untagged collision. There are quite a few mechanics like this that are important to take into account. eg. Running logic output to a destroyer and other stuff like a sound or emitter, the destroyer takes precedent and the object is destroyed before the sound played or object emitted. I get around that with a 0.1 second timing delay. You can trigger sounds on destruction but then it's not selective what destroyed it.

That's probably true. And I think this hierarchy has a bug in some of the levels on my moon. I have a destroyer and tag both activated at the same time, or rather with this hierarchy in mind the tag is activated before it's destroyed. Now if I copy the whole object with L3 that changes in the copy. The tag will be destroyed before it's activated. I used the same 0.1 second delay to make it reliable again.

[Shifty Geezer]

The obvious fix is have destruction as the last thing you do with an object, always. That makes the most sense too, and I'm a bit surprised it doesn't work that way! with what you say about the copy behaving differently, I suppose there's an order that copied objects are 'rebuilt' that can introduce subtle changes.

[Cornsnake]

Yeah, hopefully it'll be fixed in the full game. I did report it. It's rather nasty bug because it effects captured objects aswell, and can't be fixed by simply replacing the faulty logic. Only rebuilding the chip entirely will do it. Luckily I keep the older captured version after I've added logic for the newer version. I still lost a lot of time rebuilding things, and checking if everything still works the way it's supposed to. Can't wait for the full game, so I can start making a proper version of my level.

[goonergaz]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Okay, here's a vid of my level.

fantastic stuff mate

[Billy Idol]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Okay, here's a vid of my level. Off screen on an SD camera I'm afraid, although the sound is a high quality capture. It's a shooter using all three layers, with you having to switch between them. The tricky bit in creation was getting a system where the ship scrolls through the level and is locked to the screen space. Once that was sorted, it's possible to play around with level design (something I'm not very good at!).



Cornsnake gave some excellent feedback. Basically it's too hard! I felt it might well be when making it as changing layers is tricky. Tried different controls like motion, but nothing worked as well as L2/R2 for me. The camera view was chosen to help, and then the critters colour coded, but it still takes a lot of getting used to. The 3D view actually dictated a lot of design choices. If side on you can use round material like hologram that, even though a cylinder, looks round. Moving the camera to the side, long bits look stupid, so I went with paint. Strangely to use paint you ahve to capture it like LBP1; it's not available as a projectile by default. And it doesn't work as a projectile with sensors either and you have to use a Paintinator sensor, which means the enemy flashes when hit even if you don't want him to. I'm sure the crab would fluster a lot of people as you have to shoot the arms first before it's vulnerable, and the only way I figures to show that easily was pain sounds, but it'd be very easy for a player to hammer the middle with shots seeing him flash and not know it wasn't hurting!

Phantastic Shifty!
Great music too! Reminds me of the old Amiga demo scene...
Looks great and gives me a good mood overall!

Some questions to the creator:

- Is it possible in LBP2 to implement combo points. E.g. when you get attacked by a swarm of little "fishes" and you manage to kill all of the swarm before they leave the screen - would be cool to get combo points, or maybe a nice upgrade coin?!

- Upgrade is a big question for me: is it possible to implement some form of upgrade system? I saw that you already got some cool bombs and blast and everything. It would be ultra cool for instance to get some kind of shop (remember Blood Money), where I can spend some upgrade coins to get new weapons...for instance a nice looking shield, or a small protector satellite

- How about coop? Is this in theory possible?

- It would be super cool, to have a mixed game: for instance the base could be kind of treasure hunting, or upgrade coins for your ship!? Then you fly around with your ship, fighting monsters and get an indication that treasure is around - > now you have to leave the ship to make the side missions and find the treasure on foot, using you mighty laser cannon

...just some random thoughts from and old skool fighter game lover...

Could you rougly give a number how long it takes to make something like this in LBP2 creator?

I wonder why MM did not include the YouTube PS3 capability directly? Would made things a lot easier...

[Shifty Geezer]

I noticed a couple of missing bits of componentry that actually seem obvious these days - virtual MEMS! Real MEMS is appearing in all our devices, so why not on our LBP devices? Gyro and accelerometer sensors are needed to cover some actions that otherwise still need little bits of mechanics and aren't very reliable. I was trying to create a more sophisticated camera typical of scrolling games that'll move to look ahead in the direction you're travelling, and struggling with lots of different techniques, noticed it'd only take an accelerometer sensor.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Billy Idol

Phantastic Shifty!

Thanks! (and goonergaz)

Some questions to the creator:

- Is it possible in LBP2 to implement combo points. E.g. when you get attacked by a swarm of little "fishes" and you manage to kill all of the swarm before they leave the screen - would be cool to get combo points, or maybe a nice upgrade coin?!

I think so. Probably with tags, labelling each wave.

- Upgrade is a big question for me: is it possible to implement some form of upgrade system?

Yep. Cornsnake recommended a shooter level with loads of upgrades. I haven't checked it out yet. My system just changes the action based on collectables, but you could wire in shop system for making changes. Using the selector makes this pretty easy. Although stopping in a shop, it could be done but would need a fair bit of work.

- How about coop? Is this in theory possible?

Easy peasy! I could almost copy/paste the spaceship to add a second. The only tricky bit for me is the 'external' HUD that needs hard-wiring (although there may be solutions to that). Lots of levels have the HUD as part of the player character, little floating bars that can be part of the object directly and so spawnable.

- It would be super cool, to have a mixed game: for instance the base could be kind of treasure hunting, or upgrade coins for your ship!? Then you fly around with your ship, fighting monsters and get an indication that treasure is around - > now you have to leave the ship to make the side missions and find the treasure on foot, using you mighty laser cannon

I look forward to playing it when you've made it! But yeah, a basic variation on Lunar Jetman is doable. There's one major limit to LBP2 regards creating classics though, and that's no wrap-around screen. You can't have a player go off the left and on the right. So where something like Biplanes or Star Control is creatable, having to work without wraparound is going to have a very negative impact on the gameplay. Dunno how that could be addressed, but I very much doubt it'll happen in LBP2. You also can't (AFAIK) flip an object in game, so vehicles have to be of a symmetrical design rather than like Lunar Jetman where the truck would change direction it was pointing.

Could you rougly give a number how long it takes to make something like this in LBP2 creator?

Too long? At least twice as long as you anticipate? It's much, much faster than LBP1. You can lay the foundation for any simple game in a couple of hours, once you are experienced. Prior to that, there's a lot of exploring and experimenting. I dunno how you'd factor in the learning time. And the polish takes a long time too. I find creating a level, rather than just a game mechanic, is the hardest part. You need to spend time adding variety and thinking about the gameplay experience. Still, some of the 8 and 16 bit classics can be created in spirit in a weekend. I was thinking of trying a search-and-rescue level (vertical scroller, where I wanted the camera mechanic mentioned in the above post) and had a brief look yesterday. Could build a ship, sackbots to rescue, and basic level in a few hours maybe, but I spent as long just trying to figure out a vertical-only scrolling camera, to no success!

I wonder why MM did not include the YouTube PS3 capability directly? Would made things a lot easier...

Maybe it's because they haven't got the processing to spare? But yeah, it's a major omission, especially given the movie-type creations they want. Then again, maybe they want people to buy LBP2 to experience these instead of watching them for free on YouTube?

[Billy Idol]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Maybe it's because they haven't got the processing to spare? But yeah, it's a major omission, especially given the movie-type creations they want. Then again, maybe they want people to buy LBP2 to experience these instead of watching them for free on YouTube?

Thanks for the insight!

With regards to Youtube: my feeling is that Youtube videos of levels which can be made in LBP2 is the best commercial in the world for this game - and it is free and user made

Just a side node: you know that in those old skool shooters there are typicall 99 levels....so where is the rest

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Billy Idol

Just a side node: you know that in those old skool shooters there are typicall 99 levels....so where is the rest

The good thing with the scrolling-level system is it's simply level based, just like any other scrolling LBP level. One could easily build new levels and string them together with the level links, so a long game would definitely be possible.

[patsu]

Huh, there is no Youtube upload feature in LBP2 ? Can you at least upload a snapshot of your level to their community site ? I could be wrong but I remember there is a Youtube page for LBP.

[upnorthsox]

It may just be down for the beta, that way people have to work to break NDA.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by patsu

Huh, there is no Youtube upload feature in LBP2 ? Can you at least upload a snapshot of your level to their community site ?

There is the same in-game camera for capturing screenshots. LBP.me shows such captured images, though they're 440x248 pixel titchy!

I could be wrong but I remember there is a Youtube page for LBP.

They have their own channel, but I don't recall any YT recording in LBP and a quick Google doesn't suggest there was either.

[patsu]

How does LBP2 community site work now, to promote you own levels ?

[Shifty Geezer]

You get a webspace at LBP.me that lists all your creations, where you can explore other people's creations, and queue them to play on LBP2. Every game gets a URL and a visual code - my shooter level is : http://beta.lbp.me/v/3r73 with that card http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?c....lbp.me/v/3r73. So you can send people links or print out cards for them to access a level via webcam presumably. I don't know if that's implemented yet. You then get a list of cool levels, hot levels, MM Picks. Otherwise it's much the same as LBP - thousands and thousands of creations you are competing against. Like everything else. 'Success' (if you're after recognition and not just creating something for the fun of it or for someone in particular) depends on promotion skills outside of the game. Being part of a huge network (GAF, large Facebook posse) to get a large initial viewing and become a hot level to top one of the go-to charts is pretty much essential AFAICS.

[patsu]

Yeah, they should integrate LBP2 user level promotion into forums, blogs and sites.

Those simple FaceBook spamming (from games) are too primitive and intrusive.

[Shifty Geezer]

Where's Jaeyden in all this? Surely he has a beta key, being a Crowned Prince.

[goonergaz]

be surprised if he wasn't one of the ones snapped up by MM

[patsu]

He's on my friends list. I see him in LBP2 a few times. Probably hacking something up. ^_^

Upsilandre (Quatz51) is also another LBP hero to look out for.

[Shifty Geezer]

I've already mentioned Quazi's work has appeared on MM Picks with a few demos. I'll go looking for Jaeyden.

[patsu]

Is he in the LBP 2 beta ? If not, MM is... crazy !

I don't think Quatz has been crowned in LBP ? But (of course) an alien needs no crowning.