Blender

[KnightsFan]

You can't just change out which weapon Megaman is holding?

Charging shouldn't be terribly difficult, since you can get the positive or negative pulses of a key in python.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

He doesn't have different weapons he holds; he absorbs the data into his Buster, which changes his colour, and he then uses that arm to use the weapon that he copied. For example, his buster would fire the Triple Blade from Blade Man(Yes, I get the humour there. =P), or his hand would throw the Metal Blade from Metal Man. Which is the problem here; since there's nothing to reflect in terms of weapons, I could definitely just maybe do a change state to update Megaman to the new weapon, but unless I could just switch textures on the fly, then it'd just fire the weapon, with no visual cue for the player as to what weapon they're using. I know it's possible, since Capcom's pulled it off a few times... However, that's using a whole specific engine for it, so yeah.

So, it would allow two 'forms' of charging, then? Normal shots, slightly charged, and fully charged? I'm willing to sacrifice a level of charging until I figure it out perfectly, of course. =P

[KnightsFan]

I see. If you need to merely change textures, I know that's possible (I've done it before). It has to do with the VideoTexture module.

If you need to change out Megaman's geometry, that's more difficult. One option would be to have have each model always there, but only one visible. When you change weapons, or whatever it's called, make the current one invisible and the new one visible. Or something like that.
I believe there's also a function for changing out meshes, but I don't know how to use it.

For the charging: sensors fire a positive pulse when they're activated, and a negative pulse when deactivated. So if you press the mouse button, it'll send a positive pulse, and when you lift your finger back off it, it'll send a negative pulse. So you start a timer when the button is pressed, and do something when the timer reaches a certain number, or cancel it if a negative pulse occurs.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

Ah, okay then. That's probably all I'll need to do, since nothing changes. X's the one with all the fancy armours, and even then, they're chosen before the start of the level. =P And since I'm going for Megaman, and not X, that's fine still.

Luckily, no. The only time would be if I were replacing his helmet with his no helmet version, but I'm not confident in that yet. Technically I still just have a test model too, but...

Hmm, that might work, then. So, a kinda 'if timer is under 2 seconds, normal shot, if timer is between 2 seconds and 4 seconds, medium shot, and if timer is over 4 seconds, large shot' type of script? That might work. That's the more complex of the removed features from 9 and 10, after all.

[KnightsFan]

Do you know how to pin soft bodies in the BGE?     Edit: Never mind, I got it working

About the timer: That's the idea. While you can do "if sensor.positive" in python, I don't think you can do "if sensor.negative." But since the pulse is either positive or negative, you should be able to use an else statement.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

That's actually a question I've been wanting to know, for stuff like Link's hat. Since the cloth stuff doesn't seem to work as well as it should. =/

[KnightsFan]

I suppose I will impart my newfound knowledge, then. Cloth in the BGE is slightly more complicated than cloth in the render engine.

1. Make your cloth object, and remember the cloth only bends on vertices (so a single plane won't do much)
2. Set the Physics to "Soft Body", deselect "Shape Match", and set the "Collision Bounds" to "Triangle Mesh"
    You now have a bit of cloth. To make it pinned to something, you need a rigid body joint
3. Add an object or empty. The cloth vertex closest to this object will get pinned in place.
4. Add a "Rigid Body Joint" constraint to the object, and set the "Target" to whatever your cloth is named. Voila!

You can add multiple joints if you want. You can also offset the rotation center of the joint using the X, Y and Z fields (click "Display Pivot" to see where the cloth will hang from)

[Magical Girl Mimi]

Ah, I see. *Nods* So, this would work for stuff like shirts or so, too(For limited movement)? Or is there another way to handle that?

Also, how is a good way to handle hair, aside from particles, since they, IIRC, still aren't handled in the BGE?

[KnightsFan]

I assume so. I haven't done anything besides a few tests myself.

I've never worked with particles or hair. Actually, I need to learn so I can make grass.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

Alright then. Once I figure out how to make a less blocky than would be realistic body, then I'll try to make clothes for the character.

Okay; I hope it'll be possible...

/EDIT: Update on the game: I've now got a test boss room, along with the ability to kill off the shot objects if they touch another object with the property 'object'. I can't shoot through walls with this, which is kinda a shame; but since I haven't figured out how to make going off the screen kill the object yet, I can't have tons of bullet objects eating up my resources. xD

//EDIT: OOOH. I think I just accidentally fixed my texture problem. =P Lemme go test...

///EDIT: Okay, maybe not, but I'm getting close I think.

////EDIT: Server ate my edit. =P Anyway, what I was saying was that I can't run GLSL on OpenGL 1.4(Which my outdated laptop's graphics card uses), that I'll quickly manually check my mapping(Even though it works in multi-textured mode), and that I'm perplexed that the other texture even possibly worked on this.

[KnightsFan]

Are you making a 2D game? If so, you could just set the bullet lifetime to be the maximum amount of time it takes to get across the screen.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

Pretty much; it's more a 2.5d game, like the PSP Megaman games, but it's a 2D platformer, in genres. The main problem I have right now(Which'll be fixed when I import that movement script), is some of the movement stuff is pushing me off the platform, which I obviously can't have. Then I'll have to work on other stuff, and likely move my test workshop over to my desktop, as it should be able to handle MORE than my laptop can. Maybe not that much, OpenGL wise, but... =P

[KnightsFan]

I see. Yeah, I would set the bullet lifetime to the max time it takes to get across the screen, then they wouldn't eat your resources. Alternatively, you could build a wall just off screen and parent it to the character, and kill any bullets that hit it.

What do you mean, you're pushed off the platform? Sideways, or through?

[Magical Girl Mimi]

True. I'm also trying to figure out how to have the camera pan only when 'Megaman' is in the center of the screen, but that's not an issue right now, since I'm not using the camera at this moment anyway.

Off the x axis. =P Basically, I have my character traversing the stage going up on the Z axis, and left/right on the Y axis. However, in some instances(Formerly running into a wall with the old 'simple' motion actuator), I get push OFF the platform, on the X axis. Setting the bounding box to something like a cube had that effect too, so I'm actually flying off into space to what would be the right in an actual 3D game. =P The other problem I'd had, was that when I fell to the ground, I had to jump to move to the right, especially with one of the bounding boxes. Obviously it's not supposed to do that, and in some views, I'm also hovering. xD I'll be the first to admit this isn't exactly the most bug-free game I've seen. Still not the buggiest, though. =P

Also, the first boss for this test? Will be Airman. Or rather, a testing model to destroy to represent Airman, that'll not be able to fight back and all. =P(Hey, I've gotta defeat Airman somehow.)

[KnightsFan]

For the camera panning, you could get the positions of both the camera and Megaman, and only move the camera if the Y-position is the same.

That sounds strange. Have you tried invisible barriers, so your character can't move along the X-axis at all?

*Does not know who Airman is* I've never played Megaman, see...

[Magical Girl Mimi]

You mean Z axis. =P But yeah, that might be an idea, but would take some python coding... What about 'moving' screens like on certain platformers? Where the 'screen' changes as you go down or up? Or is it just better to have the camera do that?(Though for both of this, I'd need to figure out a different setting for the bosses, since there's a couple points where the camera needs to stay in ONE spot, like, again, the boss rooms)

Not yet, but that was my next plan. I just have to figure that out. =P

Basically, he's an infamous boss that apparently no-one can beat, because the pattern of his tornadoes is impossible to dodge. He's actually easier to beat than everyone says, if you can afford to take a few hits and spam the Mega Buster. =P I'd say Quick Man or Wood Man is harder(All are Megaman 2 Robot Masters).

Now, that's actually making me curious about something; how would I go about 'unlocking' weapons after beating a boss, do you think?

[KnightsFan]

Yes, well, you'll have to get your hands dirty with Python sooner or later :p
You could just have different states for the camera. If the camera is in state 1, have it follow the character. If it's in state 2, put it in a specific place - it's not too terribly difficult, it'll just take a bit of planning.

For weapon unlocks: You'll probably need some sort of profile system, with stats being saved to files. I would just make a list of unlocked weapons that is loaded when the game starts, and write a new weapon into the list when it's unlocked. I can show you some of my code, if you want.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

Yeah, that's true. =P I really do need to learn Python soon, since it gives so much more freedom. But I want to personally see how much I can do physics wise, with just the logic bricks. =P

Hmm, that's true. Maybe have an 'empty' or something for switching the camera states(Which would otherwise be centered on the thing). If I REALLY needed an out, just have something switch the camera object the scene's using to the next camera, though a scrolling downward feature(Like in, again, the Megaman games, and similar to what it does for scene transitions in The Legend of Zelda's 2D games) would be kinda cool.

That might work, and would help with future stuff, if I can mess around with profile things already. And that would be appreciated, though I'd likely try to eventually use it just as a base reference, so that I don't use your coding outright. ^^'

[KnightsFan]

There are things you can't really do with just logic bricks - AI, for example.

A basic profile would be something like this. Say you've got a txt document that looks like:

Code:

Name KnightsFan
Level 1
Weapons TheAwesomeSwordofDoom UselessPocketKnife

And you want to assign his unlocked weapons to "TheAwesomeSwordofDoom" and "UselssPocketKnife." You could do this:

Code:

        try:
            file = open('path/file.txt')      # The file path has to be relative to game
            for line in file:                       # Loop through the lines in the weapon's profile
                if "Weapons" in line:                 # Check if the word "Weapons" is in that line
                    list = line.split()            # Turn this line into a list -> ['Weapons', 'TheAwesomeSwordofDoom', 'UselssPocketKnife']
                    unlockedWeapons = list    # You will use this variable in the game
                    unlockedWeapons.pop(0)    # If you want, use this to remove the zero'th element of the list (which, in this case, is 'Weapons')
        except:
            print('Error reading the profile')  # If it can't open the file, this will be printed
        else:
            file.close()

[Magical Girl Mimi]

Well, you could have basic AI. Like what's present in Megaman 2(Except for the bosses). If you get close, have something happen. =P

Hmm, that sounds really interesting. So you could track more advanced stuff too, like deaths and kills and such? That would be very cool to have handy.

Is it possible to print that into a screen if needed, too? Like a 'stats' screen?