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Citrus Engine

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Started 4 years ago by motionsmith
Latest reply from VideoGuy

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motionsmith
Member
Post Count: 23

It's a little embarrassing to show at this point, but what the hell. Myself, and a small group of others are working on something that I call the "Citrus Engine." It's in a fairly early stage, but we are releasing new updates pretty quickly.

Blog:
http://blueflamedev.com/blog (look through the Citrus Engine tag).
Demo 3:
http://blueflamedev.com/projects/citrusengine/demo_3.php
Demo 2:
http://blueflamedev.com/projects/citrusengine/demo_2.php
Demo 1:
http://blueflamedev.com/projects/citrusengine/demo_1.php

It's a platforming engine being built in AS3, which will use XML to control level design and sprites (at this point, everything but menus). Parallel to the Citrus Engine are "tools" that will allow you to build the levels visually through AIR's ability to read and write XML files.

Citrus Engine's model is currently formed to profit the developers, and not to be completely open source, although certain aspects will be leveraged to the community eventually.

http://blueflamedev.com/blog
Blueflame Development and the Citrus Engine

Posted 4 years ago #
Mistercheef
MacNinja
Post Count: 1189

I'll try it out as soon as I get on a computer (I am on my iPhone)

<img src="http

Posted 4 years ago #

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stick209
Member
Post Count: 22

Demo 3 was cool.Can you share your levels.

Fancy Pants Adventure 3 is out.Click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

Posted 4 years ago #

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FairlyObvious
Hotness
Post Count: 820

I saved the princess and then died =(
That's almost as bad as dying right when killing the angry rabbit, but at least I still get ice cream =/

Every girl loves a man in fancy pants! =)

Posted 4 years ago #

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Thefox
Member
Post Count: 249

That would be like getting princess zelda or peach and then bowser or ganon revives!
and i didn't know you could die and still get the icecream! you gotta take a pic.

Anyways, it's really good. Are you drawing the levels with a tablet?

Posted 4 years ago #
motionsmith
Member
Post Count: 23

Yeah, it's mostly tablet. Some of it is in Flash though. I'm not much of an artist, so full games (non-demos) will use real artists rather than my demo-art.

http://blueflamedev.com/blog
Blueflame Development and the Citrus Engine

Posted 4 years ago #

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DrNeroCF
aka Brad Borne
Post Count: 703

Very cool, I see that the levels are bitmapped, are they just loaded into the file, or being dynamically cached? Is the level all loaded at once, or tiled and loaded as needed? I see it's running at around 45 frames a second there (at least I think it is...) If it is, would that be too fast for artists to animate at (the fbf artists, I mean)?

I definitely don't know anything about xml, so I'm wondering, how much customizability can a player have without getting hold of the Flash engine? Are players merely making levels out of tile sets, or can they actually load graphics into the game? What about characters and enemies? I'm really a big n00b when it comes to any technology surrounding Flash, so sorry about all the questions at once...

I see you prefer AS3 to AS2 I wouldn't mind getting into a discussion about how AS3 would handle parts of the FPA engine that sound like they're built around an AS2 mindset (and no that doesn't mean everything's sloppily thrown everywhere, haha.

Doodle, sketch, draw, design, fill notebooks with elaborate scenes, funny character designs, and gameplay ideas.
Find your own personal style and run with it. Craft characters and stories that you love.
Enjoy your own work, and donâ€™t be afraid to show it off. Create.

Posted 4 years ago #
Nyubis
Nyubis of Strata
Post Count: 9090

I got a tablet too, but its baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad
really, it ssucks. so i draw with mouse, wich goes prtty well.

Not in cruelty
Not in wrath
the Reaper came today.

An angel visited
this gray path
And took the cube away.

Posted 4 years ago #
stick209
Member
Post Count: 22

I like your demos.

Fancy Pants Adventure 3 is out.Click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

Posted 4 years ago #
motionsmith
Member
Post Count: 23

Hey Brad,

The levels are built using drag and drop onto a "stage". If you want a "goomba", you just drag it onto the level map where you want it (Spawning is managed as-needed). Same thing with platforms and level items. Sprites are not used in the level-builder: just icon "representations" of the level objects. Level background imagery is loaded from XML, not embedded.

I just recently had a breakthrough with character sprites actually. They're loaded at run-time (or before a level starts) from an XML file (which can also be generated by a visual AIR app). Then, when they are needed in-game, the loaded asset is directly copied using the BitmapData object. This saves them from needing to be cached, which can be worrisome. And the fact that they are loaded externally means that people can change out sprites without needing to go into the code.

The engine currently runs at about 45fps on most mid-end machines (at 640x480), but this will be normalized to 30.

The goal would be for people to be able to make levels (with no menus) without every knowing code. They could possibly even select from sprite sets (which are just XML files). If someone wanted to make a full-fledged game with menus and custom classes, they would need to know and understand AS3 APIs, but the API is currently very clean and nicely standardized OOP.

I have an equal amount of questions for you. I respect your work and would enjoy bouncing ideas off each other from one professional to another. I understand the need for a certain amount of non-disclosure, so I definitely don't expect any FLA's or anything. An AS3-AS2 discussion would be be great as well.

I am curious how you handle scrolling such large levels, and if you have ever had any performance problems with it. I am also curious about some of your physics techniques and particularly how you handle hit-detection and level building (seeing some of your old video clips of your four-point hit-detection was a treat). It's hard for me to tell if you overlay your level-art over a tile (or rectangle) map, or if you use some sort of Grant Skinner style BitmapData hit detection. If it's the latter, you'd definitely see a performance boost in AS3. BitmapData class even has a built-in method for handling shape-based collisions.

http://blueflamedev.com/blog
Blueflame Development and the Citrus Engine

Posted 4 years ago #
DrNeroCF
aka Brad Borne
Post Count: 703

Heh, definitely a very sweet project, I'm sure a lot of people on this forum would like to be able to make platformers that easily. I fooled with external loading a bit to try and do something like that, but I could never get it to work properly... that was a few versions of flash ago, though...

All of my physics are stupidly simple, really. It looks like your game has more slant detection that World 2 already. For large levels, all I do is (well, okay, this was probably one of the most complex parts of creating World 2 for me) create a grid of bitmaps (as large as Flash can handle), then stamp the giant level clips on each one. For World 1, I just broke clips up and did 'cacheAsBitmap,' but, as you can see in World 1, there's quite a few noticeable seams, and you can't bitmap anything until the level is completed, so it runs super slow until it's done. But yeah, I don't load anything dynamically, everything is just cached (hence the orange bar whenever a level loads), I didn't want any hiccups while tiles were loading in and out.

I overlay the map with giant hand drawn vector movie clips for hit detection, a few different ones for each collision type (ground, walls and flat ground, platforms, etc), there's really no vector math in the collision.

Oh, and one more thing about getting Flash to run fast, especially if you're shooting for 30 frames a second. I think that most people think that they're bogging Flash down too much in the browser, when really Flash is just being stupid and not timing itself correctly. Check our this post about it.

Doodle, sketch, draw, design, fill notebooks with elaborate scenes, funny character designs, and gameplay ideas.
Find your own personal style and run with it. Craft characters and stories that you love.
Enjoy your own work, and donâ€™t be afraid to show it off. Create.

Posted 4 years ago #
motionsmith
Member
Post Count: 23

Ahh I gotcha. Right now, I'm loading in swf files that contain bitmaps, which can be larger than 2880 (thus bypassing the BitmapData restriction), but I still may go back and tile the backgrounds so that I can only display the tiles that I need until the hero gets to them. I'll have to see what gives the best performance.

So your hit detection must use a combination of hitTest() and pixel-level detection (first it tests the box boundary using hitTest, then if that's true, it tests the pixels using BitmapData)? Are you using Grant Skinner's CollisionDetection class?

Yes, I've noticed the difference between the standalone player and the browser. It's quite significant. I even plan on releasing AIR versions of my games so they can be optimized again. I'll still put out a browser version (with some FPS throttling) for people who don't want to download (probably most).

It's interesting how you split up "ground" from "flat ground". That must be how you get your character to stick to certain surfaces for running? I like it.

http://blueflamedev.com/blog
Blueflame Development and the Citrus Engine

Posted 4 years ago #
IQ52
Wise Guy
Post Count: 29

Demo 1 was correctly titled, the easiest platform ever.

MY BLOG!! http://www.lizardnator.blogspot.com

Posted 4 years ago #
coolcat23306
Member
Post Count: 2

Wow...those are very fun. I really like them. If there were a boss or a general story line I would actually buy it if it was for sale.

Posted 4 years ago #
Gazzo
Member
Post Count: 135

Wow. Neat. Really neat.

I like the way the games are made as well. The drag and drop style reminds me of Game Maker. =P

Posted 4 years ago #
motionsmith
Member
Post Count: 23

Demo 4 of the Citrus Engine is finally posted. It's not without it's errors, but the engine is coming along. You can read more about it, and play it at this link here:

http://blueflamedev.com/blog/?p=33

http://blueflamedev.com/blog
Blueflame Development and the Citrus Engine

Posted 4 years ago #
Monster
Member
Post Count: 686

wow... your good. I look forward to another demo, or the final game!

Arguing on forums is like running in the special olympics. Even if you win, your still retarted.

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Posted 4 years ago #
VideoGuy
Spielberg
Post Count: 8720

Wow. It's sure come a long way from Demo 1. It actually took me three tries to get through the whole thing (it took me one try to get through Demo 1 ). Keep up the good work.

Just got back on the internet after losing my access for a week. Read more on Random Discussion.

Posted 4 years ago #
atomic1fire
Member
Post Count: 36

Citrus is sounding interesting

Posted 4 years ago #
jesus_minime
Member
Post Count: 2110

wow! man, now i'm thinking i might want to start learning as3! lol

Posted 2 years ago #

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