Comments for Stencyl Tutorial 4: Mouse-Based Shooting

Question: What is the question?

Make sure you have the kill codes in the collisions and that the behaviors are each attached to the actors.

That's the entire point of this series! :D (Do be sure to start at part one though; the site for Stencyl is www.stencyl.com)

It's even cooler when you make it yourself! :)

You're welcome. I'm happy to help :).

When making a scene bigger than one screen, you need to add to the player: "always move camera to self" and add the x/y of the camera to the x/y of the mouse in the atan code.

Congrats :)

lol, you're welcome... I think :P.

Thanks :)

Glad you got it working :)

If you want to, upload it to StencylForge, and I'll take a look at it.

Are you sure that you have the bullet as a sensor collision and that its collision group doesn't hit the player's group?

Did you remember to attach the behavior to the actor? That is the issue with behaviors: it's easy to forget to "attach to actor" (the big green button in the upper-right).

You're welcome ;)

Check your collision groups to make sure the bullet's group is not set to hit the player's group. If needed, make a new group to do it.

What about Tutorial 1? :P

Well... I own my own tutoring business, in which I am the only employee... so I am both boss and employee... :P. Anyways, glad you liked it! :D

In the Actor -> Position palette, you can find the "direction self is facing" code. Then, you can use that as the angle for the bullets (please note, you may have to add/subtract 90 from it to make it work correctly, depending on how you setup your actors).

Aye, for the most part, you can estimate at least one hour of programming per MINUTE of gameplay (varies a lot depending on if you are making a mini-game or a full-fledged game).

Best way to reach me in real time is via my livestream: livestream.com/poweredbyflowers

You're welcome :)

Thanks for your support and for making my day :D

Are you sure you used a "do every" instead of "do after" code? If you want, upload the game to Forge and send me a PM with its name and I'll take a look at it to see what's wrong.

Are you sure you attached the behaviors? If you want, upload the game to Forge and send me a PM with its name and I'll take a look at it to see what's wrong.

Thanks for the 5's. I do my best to answer comments (although the best methods are via my livestream or via PM).

It's generally the default. To turn it on/off, go into the the physics tab of the actor and turn on/off rotation freely.

My graphics are generally pretty bad too, unless I spend a LOT of time on them. That come down more to networking. There are forums on Stencyl.com to find artists/musicians to work with or DeviantArt is another good choice.

So it works now? If so, good (couldn't really tell by your post)

If you want, take a screenshot of the code and send me the link (or just upload the game to StencylForge and send me the title). You likely have some correct coding in the wrong spot, such as putting the bullet creation in a scene behavior instead of the player behavior.

There are so many areas that can change that it's hard to do a screenshot of all of the updates... would require a couple of slides just to show all of the code. I tried to do something similar by having recaps, but I know it's not quite the same thing.

The "group for this actor's colliding shape" is a very rarely used code, but it is indispensable to some programmers. It is designed for those who use multiple collision shapes on a single actor, such as animation that includes a sword. Those animations can have multiple different groups attached, and that code allows programmers to figure out which one was hit. For the majority who use one collision shape per actor, it's not needed.

Can you screenshot the coding and send me the link? Or, better, could you upload it to the Forge and tell me the name, and I'll take a look at it?

Are the two colliding? Check your Game Center -> Collision Groups and make sure the button between the enemies and the bullets is green, not blue.

If you want to shoot directly at the mouse, no movement (like in a shooting game), just use the "x of mouse" and "y of mouse" coding alone, without any subtraction. If you want to shoot things directly, then just use "if mouse was released on self" coding in the actor's code itself. Does that make sense?

Glad ya figured it out :)

In your Game Center, check your collision groups and make sure your bullets aren't colliding with your player, which could cause them to bounce off, making them go in only one direction.

Not half bad :)

It's not all about speed (and Stencyl is fast) but rather easing into programming. As I have said many times before, if you know how to code in AS3 or another language, you should probably stick to that. Stencyl is a good stepping stone though. You don't go straight to Calculus without first learning about functions ;)

I read all comments. To make the actor point towards the mouse cursor, follow the same idea in this tutorial (with the arctan2 coding) but instead of setting the bullet's velocity in that direction, use "point self to x degrees" under Actors -> Position. Note that I think you have to add 90 degrees to the amount you get for the pointing to work properly, and in order to point continuously, it will need to be in the "always" heading... I will caution you that doing a trigonometric function in an "always" heading can lag the game a bit, so I would not advise using the code if it is an intensive CPU game. Hope that helps.

Correct.

Aye, key presses are good. The difference is that local attributes are ONLY used by the current behavior (and for each individual actor, aka: multiple enemies with the same behavior can have different local attribute values). Global (game) attributes are used by any behavior, and if the value changes one place, it changes everywhere. Also, local attributes are not saved/loaded whereas game attributes are.

Chaz, the issue is likely that you are trying to use a game attribute (purple) for the HP when you should be using a local attribute (blue). Try making a new local attribute for HP and use that instead. Let me know if it still glitches.

Are you sure you attached the bullet movement behavior to the bullets? If you didn't, they will just stay at your player. If you did, then please screenshot it and send me a link. My livestream (livestream.com/poweredbyflowers) is the best way to reach me for one-on-one help.

I don't know how to put the controls on the first page without destroying the welcome message... perhaps instead of the Stencyl logo... would need some feedback if that sounds good though. I tried to use the simplest advance controls, ones I would hit personally.

Will keep that in mind for future tutorials, but it's a lot more complicated than this, so might be much later to see if I can even simplify it to a tutorial.

Thanks Snackman. I'm glad to be able to help :). I'm also happy to hear about people taking my ideas and making them their own. My desire is not to see a bunch of copies but rather people expanding on the ideas I laid out, which it sounds like you are doing.