The
Actor Control Panel
The
Actor Control Panel gives you the ability to create uniqueness
in your Actor's behavior. The Actor Control Panel is accessed
by right mouse clicking on an Actor and selecting Actor Control
from the pop up Actor Menu:
The Actor Control Panel is where your Actor can be directed to
display text or Animations, to follow a certain path, and/or to react
in a specific way when it is assigned an Event
or Action. The Actor
Control Panel is a powerful feature. If you want to build successful
games, it is critical that you become familiar with all of its options
.
The
Actor Control Panel provides you with a myriad of useful features.
The following discussion deals with what each feature has to offer and
how it is used.
Name:
This drop down box displays the name that you have given to your Actor.
Click in this box pops up a list that displays all of the Actors in your
game. You can select any Actor and modify or edit its behavior using the
Name box.
Transparency:
Transparency sets the visibility of your Actor. An Actor that has 50%
transparency will show some of the background that is behind itself. An
Actor with the Transparency set to 0% (default) will appear as solid.
Child Actors inherit the parent's transparency.
Z
Depth:
This option sets the order or depth of an Actor in the game. For Example,
if your game includes a tree (Actor) and a rabbit (Actor), you would set
the tree Actor Zdepth behind the rabbit Actor Zdepth so that the rabbit
would appear to hop in front of the tree.
Create
at startup:
Actors can be created immediately upon game start up or later in the game.
This option specifies whether the Actor will be created when game begins.
If you set this option to No, you can create the actor by using
the Create Actor
action.
Clone:
Create an Actor's clone. Cloned Actors share the same Actions
and Animations.
Single:
Select this option to make a single clone of your current
actor.
Array: Create a rectangular array of actors. Change
the parameters to see the changes in real time.
-
Horizontal count: specifies the number of clones in a line.
- Vertical count: specifies the number of clones in a column.
- Distance between clones: select Automatic to get the distance
from the actor's width and height.
- Horizontal distance: choose Manual
in the list above to
specify the horizontal distance between actors.
- Vertical distance: choose Manual
in the list above to specify the
vertical distance between actors.
Along
path : Create the clones following a selected
path. Change the parameters to see the changes
in real time.
- Path: select a
previously created path from the drop down box.
- Count: specify the number of clones in the selected path.
Remove:
Remove the selected Actor from the game
Move
and Stop:
Specify if the selected Actor will move along a path and show the animations
while in Game Editor mode.
Tile:
Draw tiles in an actor.
Tile
Matching: Create Tile Matching.
Animation:
Select the Animation (graphic) file from this drop down box.
The
Tile Animation (graphic) must contain 15 squared frames that form an
illustration as shown above.
- Use <RIGHT SHIFT> to erase tiles.
- Use <RIGHT CTRL> to hide the tile cursor.
- Use ESC to end the "Draw Tile" mode.
Single
tile: Create a Single Tile.
Draw a single tile.
Use the <right>
and <left> keys
to change the animation frame.
Text:
Specify the Actor Text and Font. (Actor Text can't receive collision events)
Text:
Type your text here. If you enter nothing, any previous entered Actor
text will be removed from your actor.
Font: Select the font that was previously created using the New
Font button.
New font: Specify a "From Image File" or a "True Type"
Font to attach a font to your text.
File: Load text from a file or save text to a file.
Image
font: Create a font from an image file.
File: Load an image
file (jpeg, gif, png, bmp, pcx, tga, xpm, xcf, lbm and tif). The image
file must contain all of the image characters in one line (ASCII
sequence).
Initial font char: Set the initial image character in the loaded file.
Numbers of font chars: Set the number of characters in the loaded file.
True
Type font:
You
can load any True Type font (.ttf files) and set the size, color, style
(Normal, Bold, Italic and Underline) and soft (Anti Alias).
Text
Input:
Select
"Yes" to configure a text input Actor to receive
text entered by the user.
The text entered by the user can be retrieved in the "text" or "textNumber"
actor variables.
You can set the input length by entering some text or just by inserting
blank space characters .
If you enter more than one text line, your input will automatically
become multi-lined.
The maximum length of the input text
is 255 characters .
On the Pocket PC only, open the Soft Input Panel in a non rotated resolution.
Text
Input Configuration:
Get
input focus: Select "Yes" to get the input focus
for this actor
Draw border: Select "Yes" to draw a border around
the text input
box using the selected color . Left mouse click the color
box to select a color.
Draw background: Select "Yes"
to draw a background behind the text input. Left
mouse click the color box to select a background color.
Cursor color: Left
mouse click the color box to select a cursor color.
Known
Text Input bugs: If your text uses a True Type Font and the
user enters text that is beyond the input limit, some of the characters
may be lost.
Normal
or Infinite:
Select
x Infinite to repeat the Actor along the x axis.
Select y Infinite to repeat the Actor along the y axis.
Select Infinite to repeat the Actor along both axis.
Select Normal for no Actor repeating.
Animation:
Add,
edit or remove animations and sequences in a Actor.
Add
Animation: Add
a new animation to the selected Actor.
-
Specify the animation name.
- Select the animation file (jpeg, gif, png, bmp, pcx, tga, xpm, xcf,
lbm and tif).
- Specify if the animation is contained in a single file or multiple
files.
- If the animation is contained in a single file, specify the number
of horizontal and vertical frames.
- Specify the animation frame rate.
Notes:
- If the image file has a color depth lower than 32 bits, Game Editor
understands that the color of the first pixel (upper left corner) is
the color that should become totally transparent in the image.
- If your image has 32 bits color depth, Game Editor will consider the
alpha channel (transparency channel) of the image.
- If your image is a gif, Game Editor will consider the gif transparent color.
- If all pixels in the image have the same color (solid image) the image
will be consider solid.
Add
Sequence: Define
a frame sequence based on the animation.
- Select an animation.
- Specify a sequence name.
- Specify a sequence frame rate.
- Enter the frame sequence (Ex.: 14;2;9;10;22;2;3;4...).
Edit:
Edit
an existing sequence or replace an animation file.
- Enter a new Frame Sequence.
- Specify a new sequence Frame Rate.
Use the Edit button to open the image editor.
The image editor defined in the Preferences
panel will be open with the selected animation frame.
After save the frame in the image editor, the frame will be updated
in Game Editor.
Notes:
- The image editor need to handle transparent PNG image files.
- Before edit, the game must be saved.
Parent:
Set the Actor's Parent (the Parent can be any Actor
in the game, including the " view" Actor, or "no parent").
When
an Actor has a parent, when the parent is moved the child actor will be
moved too.
Path:
Set the Actor's path
(the path can be a created path, a "random path", or
"no path").
Events:
Events happen when something occurs on an actor. For example, a user
mouse clicks on an Actor or an Actor collides with another Actor.
Events and Actions work
together to breathe life into your Actors.
Actions occur as a follow up to an Event. For example, after a user mouse
clicks on an Actor(Event), the Actor animation changes(Action) or after
one Actor collides with Another Actor(Event), the Actor colliding is destroyed(Action)
Envision a space ship being hit by or colliding with a bullet.
It is critical that you understand Events and Actions in order to get
the most out of Game Editor.
Click
here to read more detailed
information on Actor Events.
Click here to read more
detailed information on Actor Actions.
Event
Inheritance:
You can use the option "Inherit events from" to make the current
actor inherit events from selected actor.
The current actor will have all your events plus the events from select
actor.
Example:
You have some different 'enemies' actors that move to left and right directions
and can jump.
You can create a 'baseEnemie' actor and add the events to move:
Right key: to move to right
Left key: to move to left
Up key: to jump
After select the 'enemies' actors and select "Inherit events from:
baseEnemie".
If you want make some enemy jump in a different form, just add a new Key
Down event with the Up key.
When the user press the Up key, the executed event will be the event defined
in the enemy actor.
Receive
events even if they occur out of vision:
Set this option to "No" to optimize your game. Actors
out of vision with this option set to "No" don't
receive the following events:
Animation Finish
Collision
Collision Finish
Draw Actor
Key Down
Key Up
Mouse Button Down
Mouse Button Up
Timer
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