Hi everyone in community! These are my notes I took when reading almost everything. Anyone new to this stuff should read through this: wiki.gdevelop. io/gdevelop5/objects/
These are notes I made to help me understand this guide on the site. If this summary helps anyone new, that’s good also. I don’t understand all of it right now but learning.
This is to help me understand. There are also a few questions also in here. I’ll update this when I understand and learn more. In progress:
if you want to use graphics in all scenes
graphics can be used by all scenes – if those graphics are made into “global objects”
double click on graphics > then find “object panel” somewhere >
click set as global obj
when graphics are “global”, it cant be reversed
1 so there are things in this game
2 you add things in this app to make a game (call graphics
3 these things can do things (can do actions)
4 code (“events”) can also do things
5 these graphics have “variables” in them…
6 variables = are basically information that changes
I think right now talking a little about a “thing” like a person or artwork, and then going on to talk about variables (information) is a the best thing to do. Not sure yet
Step 1 - there are graphicsc you can see and graphics you cannot see…
So… I think the first thing you need to understand about what a game needs – is artwork. A game needs artwork in it. In games, they call this “graphics”
Let’s take a popular game like minecraft or fornite or… I don’t know whats very popular right now, let’s just go with animal crossing and stardew valley
So everything on the screen is call an artwork. In coding, they seem to be call “objects”, but we’ll go with artwork since that is much more easy to understand
Step 2 – graphics have actions
So the next thing is how to make them move. How to make the artwork moves? They’re just still artwork. Like a still painting or a still table. But they don’t move and they can’t do anything
camera stuff
objects have X and Y coordinates
y increases when you go down
top-left corner of your game’s screen starts at X=0 and Y=0
move or rotate objects =
Angles can be negative too. For example, -90 degrees is equal to 270 degrees.
Step 3 code (“events” (conditions/causes + effects/outcomes)
In the real world, there’s a sky. It’s usually said to be blue. The sky is an artwork also. Remember that anything you see is an artwork (or “object” thing)
But why is the sky blue?
Let’s think cause and effects. So in life, in the world, and in society, there are causes and there effects.
Like some people in animal crossing turns out to be really great people, and some people do not turn out that way. There are causes to this, that leads to different outcomes (effects)
So people are the way they are because of certain causes just like the sky is blue for probably many complicated causes - that only very very smart can explain to us people that do know or understand anything much about anything
Let’s call this whole “cause” and “effect” an “event” for now
Example:
In sims 5 or 10, a person (an artwork), can wear different hairstyles
So when you go to the hair salon, you can a new hair style
So the cause is going to the hair salon,
And the effect is = new hairstyle
So there are many many different causes of things happening
And many many different effects that comes from that causes
I guess maybe that is why coding or related is so complicated and hard
An event without any conditions will always perform the actions.
Ok… so what that means is that some “events” do not have any causes (or premade conditions, aka: history of humanity)
They just only have an effect…
That is very hard to give any real world or real life examples of. That might be why coding is so hard to understand for almost anyone but this summary helps me
Steps 4 - how code works
events (code) run from top to bottom
events run 60x per sec
each run is call ’ frame, tick, or game loop.’
Step 5 - graphics have actions - actions
"behavior "
do these kinds of things
deletes objects
when its not on screen
moves objects
when hotkey press
or dragging
makes object move based on physics
Ok… let’s think rpg, an rpg has different classes, and each class has different skills and abilities
That’s basically it it sounds like. That artworks (“object”) has different abilities
Step 6-
You can create your own abilities in code
behaviors have their own variables
events that are specific to that behavior. can also change beviaors
can create own behvaior for objects
recommend this as your game grows. It allows you to put logic about what your objects are doing in the custom behaviors, rather than bloating the scene’s events sheet.
Step 7 - “variable” - so all “things” (like an artwork) has “variables”, aka: information)
Variables are used to store data in the format of a number or text.
This data can represent almost anything in your game.
For example,
it could be used to record the
number of lives remaining, a player’s name, a high score
, the number of bullets left,
or the number of enemies killed.
Variables are useful because
they allow you to set the
value in one place
and then read that
value in multiple places in your game.
Ok so in life, there’s a person.
And a person (artwork) has different information about them, like if they’re nice or not nice
If they’re kind or not kind
So a “variable” is any information about a person, like what they like or dont like, their interests, etc
Step 7 - “variable” can be checked
So you can check if a person is good or not good before you are friends with them
You check by using “conditions” (or causes)
Step 8 - “variable” can be changed
A person can change the information about them - like if they’re nice or not nice, etc, or any other aspects of their personality,
Or really just anything that they want
By choice
Artwork (like a person)
after create object
its not added to screen
You need to add the object to the scene via the Objects panel.
Each “thing” can have copies of that thing
For example, a person
Can have babies
Those babies are copies
Of that person
each copy call ’ instance’
All copies of a “thing” like a person have the same abilities
For example, a baby
has Eyes
That can See
Just like the original person
But each copy can change their information
Step 9-
events do this
events to manipulate an object during the game (change its position, rotate it, change its animation, add an effect, etc…).
different objects do different things