2 replies to this topic

[ChefDavid22]

So far this week I’ve discovered three very underrated items in GM.

- The screen wrap D&D
- The animation edit for 360 view of my sprite
- Importing a sheet of sprites like alphabet fonts etc.

I think many of us try to do so much using code when in fact these things seem to exist. So I have to ask what other great and simple items like this exist in GM that you would say so many of us are missing or simply not using?

Edited by ChefDavid22, 01 May 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[BurntFish]

Addon support and D&D addons, without a doubt; as long as you don't download too much and the D&D taskbar gets really cluttered.

Yeah, it might seem on the high end of "rated", but I rarely hear of it...

[Jack Indie Box]

there are alot of good extensions out there which do all sorts of amazing things

also the built in image editor can do some great things like which can be hard/harder to achieve in code or even in photoshop:
image->colorize
image->colorize partial(a favorite of mine)
image->erase color
image-> outline
image->gradient (if you untick "replace" then you can achieve some nice easy effects even some nice fix shadow or lighting effects)

most of the animation tools are useful:
add reverse means you dont have to do any/much copy/pasting or reordering to complete a walking or other animation
translation sequence allows you to gradually slide something along the x,y or both axis per frame
rotation is great if you need fixed rotation as it will make all the frames in between
colorize can be pretty if want changing colors to happen
disappear (and combine with add reverse) to achieve visual feedback if the player(or enemy) takes damage and is temporarily invisible or just use to achieve some different effects
shrinking and the others can be occasionally useful


some people forget or don't know in the first place how useful reusing code is so scripts, extensions, action libraries and just exporting and importing already created resources is a good idea.

and ofcourse parent objects and the code event_inherited(); is mighty useful especially for not having hundreds of objects or having multiple copies of code.

Views if you never have used them are great! can pull off many effects and features, think of them as 2d cameras and using the code(in draw event) if(view_current[0]==1) allows you to draw only to the specified view! which is very handy for UI elements and splitscreen.

Surfaces have many advance features but are great for all sorts of things

scripts like ds_ can be very useful for managing different kinds of data

scripts draw_primitive_ are very useful for advanced drawing but are hard to get your head round


Finally the 2 best features of yoyogames and game maker combined is the WIKI and the built in helpfiles! its amazing what you can do when you bring it all together