Hate to do this, but...

[Jamos]

I kind of need a teacher for Game Maker. All I seem to be capable of doing is sprites and I need to learn more about how to work things. I would go to the GM community, but they kind of suck. I forgot how to do some of the simpler things too so as long as you don't mind some questions like that... please help me out. Oh, once I get someone to help could a member of staff move this thread to my game forum. Would have made it there, but less likely to get a response in that place.

[Jamos]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

*sigh* It was worth a shot. Just go ahead and put this in my game forum. I'll use this thread to try again later.

[Maijo]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

I know a lot about Game Maker. Ask me here.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

I used to know a bit about it. However most of my knowledge came from looking at the sample games and disecting the code from those to see how everything works.

[Jamos]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

Don't have much time until I get off so I will ask one of the most simple of questions. How do I make my character actually look like he is walking. I have walking sprites for it and everything, but I just can't seem to get it to work right. He either looks like he is doing some DBZ speed, break dancing or he doesn't do ****.

[Toaster]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

Buy this book. Read it. Program the games in each chapter. Bada-bing-bada-boom.

[Gustaff 13]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

I know a lil'. PM me some questions. It'll make me feel important.

How do I make my character actually look like he is walking?

Set the image_speed for that object to a value between 1 and 0. When it's at it's default value (1) it'll cycle frames at a rate of once per step.

{
image_speed = 0.3;
}

[JLaCroix]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

I know quite a bit about Game Maker too, but I specialize in RPG's so I'm not sure if that will help you. Play my latest game, Oriontide: Forever in the Eternal Darkness of the Nameless, to see what all I know how to do.

As for walking, grab a sprite that's animated walking in each of four directions. Split it up into four sprites, one each for each direction. In the key press event for up, change it to the upwards sprite, and so on. In each sprite event change the image speed to 0.3 as was previously stated. In the key release event for any key, stop the animation. (Set the speed to 0).

Edit: I should mention that I only have about an hour to spend here each day or less. I will answer when I can, however if I'm unable to there are several people here just as qualified as me. I hope I can at least be of some assistance.

[Jamos]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

Well, my project is actually a strategy RPG. Seeing as that will be pretty complicated in itself, I am starting with baby steps. My initial plans is to have stat increases by action taken and having light being a factor (some characters see better in different lighting. I think I figured out how to do the previous with viariables. Something like; if variable phys atks= 10 then ATK relative to +1... or something along those lines. Though I'll ask about how to do these later. Now I need to figure out how to have text boxes similar to the way you have them in Oriontide and a way to actually show stats on screen. Thanks for all the help so far.

[Gustaff 13]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

Now I need to figure out how to have text boxes similar to the way you have them in Oriontide and a way to actually show stats on screen.

You'll want to do this in a draw event. First drawing the window and then the text in a position with relation to the view.
Let's say you want your window size/view to be 640*480.
And let's say you want the message box to occupy the bottom 4th of the screen.
In the message object's draw event, you could draw a rectangle or a background. Then draw in the lines of text.

{
depth = -300;
draw_set_color(c_blue);
draw_rectangle(view_xview[0],view_yview[0]+360,view_xview[0]+640,view_yview[0]+480,false);
draw_set_color(c_white);
draw_set_font(fontetc);
draw_text(view_xview[0]+5,view_yview[0]+375,string1);
draw_text(view_xview[0]+5,view_yview[0]+400,string2);
draw_text(view_xview[0]+5,view_yview[0]+425,string3);
draw_text(view_xview[0]+5,view_yview[0]+450,string4);
}

That should draw a blue rectangle on the bottom of the game screen with 4 lines of text in white with font "fontect", considering you have those strings filled in elsewhere, of course.
A low depth will ensure it's being drawn above all other objects.

What's important there is the "view_xview[0]" and "view_yview[0]". It'll represent the position of your view, or game window in a room. The 0, means you'd be using the view0 in that room. When you draw in relation to a view (IE:"view_xview[0]+5,view_yview[0]+375") you won't be drawing something in the room, but on the screen. At a position on the left-side, near the bottom in this case.

There are certainly other ways to do the same thing. For extra polish, you could have the textbox animate into position, have the lines scroll themselves out.
With a do or while loop and the screen_redraw() function, you could freeze all the onscreen action during your message. But that's getting fancy.

[Jamos]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

Ugh! I set everything up the way you guys said and walking still doesn't work correctly. He only seems to do one frame of the animation and that is when I let go of the specified button. Which doesn't make sense I have it so that it will start when it is pushed. Is there any particular amount of animation frames needed for it to work correctly or something?

[Gustaff 13]

Re: Hate to do this, but...

Lessee...

One reason for your problem might be that you're using the Key Press event rather than the Keyboard. In that case it's only changing the sprite rapidly for the step in which the key is pressed, then immediately resetting it.

If you're using the drag-and-drop, in the arrow keys event you can have a Change Sprite action.
In the sprite field, you'll change the sprite to the appropriate sprite for the characters direction.
In the subimage field you'll insert -1 to loop the animation.
And in the speed field, a value between 1 and 0.

Now when the player lets go of the key you'll use a Key Release event for all the arrow keys, I presume. You can use another Change Sprite action to either set the animation speed to zero, or change the sprite to a still image for that direction.