Well I have the demo, and I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on what I've seen so far. Keep in mind I am moving to MMF2 from MMFE and not MMF 1.5 so this is a bigger jump for me than most of you.
Layers: Obviously this is a great tool and I've already tried out adding some cool scrolling effects to my older projects. However, and I could be missing something, but the repeated looping seems to be useless? I thought I'd be able to make a small area (say 320x240) with some objects, and have it loop over and over again. Instead though, each layer has to be the same size as the actual frame, so I end up having to pattern the objects all the way down the frame, or at least as far as I can "guess" they'll be needed since they are moving slower than everything else. So what exactly is the point of repeating the background layers. It seems like that would only be useful if things in the background were moving FASTER than things in the foreground. . .(riding on top of a train for example? . . . which is something I plan to try, although the background would have to scroll automatically, haven't played with that yet)
Animation editor: I found this a bit frustrating. Maybe it's just because it's different. . . but it kind of seems like they added and changed stuff for the sake of it looking professional instead of being functional. I miss the boxes to the side where I could easily enter a new size, instead of having to go into the properties to change it. I miss being able to right click to pick up a color as well, and the fact that you have to click the dropper, pick the color, then go back and select your tool was kind of annoying as well. And it REALLY needs the row of frames at the bottom, as opposed to the little box that has them in rows and columns. I like being able to just double click a blank frame. I also wish I could drag the frames over as well. . .
I had remembered reading that you could customize everything to be like tgf and such. How? Did that go out the window. The customization seems limited to the toolbars and icons that show up in the main window. . .
Anyway, the layers are great, the scaling and such I can see as being useful, but I have a feeling I'll be creating my games in MMFE and porting them to MMF2 to add the extra little effects, which seems frustrating for a $120 product. . .In the end though, maybe it's just a lot of change at once, but I still wish I could customize everything just the way I like.
You can set the animation editor to pick up a colour with right-click - use the Properties icon at the top left. The default is shift-click to pick up a colour, which frees up the RMB for a secondary colour.
It's a bit difficult to get used to the new animation editor because so many things have been moved around, but I think it's worth it - at least the "crash every five minutes" feature has been removed. The jump from MMF1.5 to MMF2 is certainly nowhere near as hard as the TGF-MMF transition for me.
Wasn't there something Clickteam said a long time ago about multiple Action Points? That would have been cool.
Yeah, I agree; MMF2 is nice; even if it looks XP-ish. It's definately laid out much better. I still think there are a few things that should be improved, but that's mostly in the GFX editor department (Rotating is a damned nightmare sometimes). The new runtime is MUCH better; but sadly not as impressive as I was hoping for. Layers is kinda handy; but I've gotten so used to not having them that it's a null point at the moment, I'll probably end up using it more as I use Fusion2 more. I will be upgrading; but I can't say when it'll happen.
The only parts I seriously hate about the new animation editor is:
1, it doesnt have that "real time" view like in MMF 1.5. Where you could pause, stop, and play your animations right there in a little preview. You could also scroll back and forth between frames with the little slider.
2, the default animations are always there. You cant get rid of them. Not ALL my active objects are players or enemies, so why I need these default animations here is behond me. The only ones I want there by default is "Stopped". Then I can add in custom ones later, or if I decide... the default ones. This is VERY messy, and very unplanned out.
The only other thing I really dislike about the MMF interface itself is the fact that the object buttons arent there anymore.
I like the Back/Forward buttons though, they work with my keyboard too. So that was a pretty nice alternative to only having 1 editor window open at once.
I know that MMF2 has been reworked from the bottom, but did they get rid of the 10,000 event bug?
I lik it so far. Today I thought I'd run into a problem. But it was just my messing up the code ^^
Gonna go for Standard instead. I don't really need the Dev. features (well ok, logo & credit free EXE's sounds tempting) and the price difference is 200EU, and that's a hecka lot for features which of some I'm not even sure what they're good for. Plus, I get 13% off of Standard.
Well I've made my decision for now. I'll be sticking with old mmfe. The new features in mmf2 are nice, layers especially, but combined with all the little inconviences I've had so far, I don't think I can justify the money or the move. It just doesn't feel revolutionary. If it had added more than tweaks to existing things and a few additions it might be worth it.
In the end I'd feel like I was making the same games with some nice effects, which, while nice are hardly necessary. And it wouldn't justify the move from a product I've become so comfortable using.
THe only thing that really pisses me off is that you have to change the animation size in the properties. That also makes having different frames have different sizes a wee bit more difficult than I'd like. I think that in further updates you should be able to switch between TGF and MMF2 styled-animation editors. Perhaps I could make the main sprites in TGF then import them from the .gam file...
The main thing i don't like about the picture editor is that it opens in a window, instead of full screen... seems a VERY weird idea to do that, as it gives you less room to edit.
I'm happy with how it turned out. Having framerate control and smoother runtime is great so I will buy it when I get paid. I see no reason for developer, I never sell anything, so it shall be standard.
thinking is like pong, it's easy, but you miss sometimes.
I'm not worried about extensions. . . I barely use them. It should feel more powerful even without them. . . but it doesn't. Just more confusing. I might end up buying TGF2 so that I can add layers to games and then save my exes with that. But I don't have much use for mmf2. . .
DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
3rd July, 2006 at 15:35:47 -
I'm gonna order it once my next €100 are deposited on my bank account. And when my parents know about the stuff.
Yeah, but MMF 1.5's screwed up all the time. It also raised the chances of it crashing, MUCH higher. I recall working on a level, zooming in, placing pieces, and zooming out to find that all my pieces were in the wrong spot. MMF2's frame editor zoom is much better though.
I find it extremely hard to grab onto the little bars for stretching quick backdrops when zoomed out. Which is the only time it's really useful, when you want to stretch a quick backdrop across the whole level and it's faster to do it zoomed out.
Also, I don't like the way patterning quick backdrops works. I liked the old way where it automatically doubled up the image. Is there a way to change this?
So far MMF2 seems good. MMF1 was a bit crashy, especially if you dealt in small sprites or complex events. Pinball movement seems very interesting indeed. They could be used well for cannonballs or something
But, I'll wait a bit before I get it I think. I've still got a few MMF1 projects to round off.
From what I can tell the pinball movement is fairly useless. Seems like you could just add your own gravity to the bouncy ball movement and have the same thing. . .I also noticed if you scroll to the left or the right the object with pinball movement moves to the left. Wtf is with that???
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
5th July, 2006 at 01:03:52 -
Uh, yeah. Totally useless, I'm sure. I'm already using it.
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
The more I read about MMF2, the more I feel like MMF 1.5 is still the standard. As soon as the demo finishes downloading I'll check it out myself, but I really don't see what it does, that MMF 1.5 doesn't, minus those layers.
Then again I'm new, so I probably haven't cracked the core of realzing how much better MMF2 would be in the long run, versus MMF 1.5
I quite like the interface compared to 1.5, I'm not totally used to it yet I'm sure I'll get there.
And the runtime seems really smooth, which is important for me because I like using lots of objects. I did a quick test; a scrolling window with spawning bouncing balls and I managed to create 1800 objects before it began to visibly slow down.
The resizing also seems really cool, and I haven't even mentioned layers.
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DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
5th July, 2006 at 06:24:14 -
"And the runtime seems really smooth, which is important for me because I like using lots of objects. I did a quick test; a scrolling window with spawning bouncing balls and I managed to create 1800 objects before it began to visibly slow down."
Whoa, so they were really setting speed as a priority, or at least they did a GREAT job at optimizing!
Tried anything like it while resizing/rotating the objects yet?
Also something neat would be to speed up the framerate as more objects are created, to even prevent the slowdown a bit!
The pinball movment seems good for physics type things. It can be used in more than just pinball. It could possibly used for a Basketball game or even for moveable/throwable objects in a platformer.
I tried using pinball movement for apples in a tree that fall when you hit them. It worked ok but at soon as you started scrolling left or right the apple randomly moved to the left. If you wanted to make a scrolling pinball game or anything with scrolling involving the pinball movement you'd have to fix this.
Also, games do run faster but I still ran into a problem when trying to increase objects in my Neo game . . . in the mmfe version after a certain amount of them were on screen it would start ignoring input commands and events. You couldn't pick up objects or perform more than the basic moves. In mmf2 I could get a lot more on screen at once, but it would still have the same problems when it hit a certain amount. Pretty dissapointed with that, but it's probably a rare occurence since most people wouldn't have that many objects with that many variables on screen at one time.
Quote:"And the runtime seems really smooth, which is important for me because I like using lots of objects. I did a quick test; a scrolling window with spawning bouncing balls and I managed to create 1800 objects before it began to visibly slow down."
What kind of settings you had there? V-sync? Screen resolution? Frame rate?
About the pinball movement, it's really nice, but it still doesn't work actually. There are so many glitches with the movement..it stucks quite often, the scrolling bug..etc. But the best thing is that we will probably see a lot modified/enhanced pinball movements made by some skilled people as soon as the movement SDK becomes available.
The runtime is definetly awesome, I did a test with alpha blending, rotating, and resizing, all with top quality at once, and it run flawlessly until I reached about 608 objects. THe thing that managed to slow it down was Vsync and Anti-Aliasing. Don't use either. Ever. EVER.
Actually tried out doing prallax scrolling yesterday. It was so much easier than it was doing parallax in MMF1.5 (or TGF1, .)In the properties for each layer you can change the X and Y Coefficient to make the layers scroll at different speeds! It works extremely well.
As I have no clue how to do prallax scrolling in MMF, this is a pretty cool feature, considering it's very easy to do. Then again, your looking at the guy who only learned how to make the screen follow the character an hour ago.
Anyway MMF2 seems more stable when it comes to a newbie like me, clicking every options and doing random things to see what happens next
I also find I'm enjoying MMF 2's interface more then MMF's, which to be honest, I really don't care for at all.
Dunno bout you guys, but I'm happy with MMF2's pic editor. It takes a lot less clicks to do an animation, opposed to the double click here, there, drag this down, etc. I haven't really used the TGF pic editor, so I can't compare it to that.
Personally, I still wish there was a script editor so we could type, copy, paste, edit events instead of clicking. Clicking can be a lot slower than typing.
Hmm... is it possible to edit the menus in MMF2 or at least add a Insert > New Object > String or Active object, instead of going to the Insert New Object part?
Hmm... also sucks that the game examples are mostly KNP-quality games. CT should do a competition for a game made in MMF2 to be used as an example. Ironically, they could also give a full copy of MMF2 out as a prize .
Edited by the Author.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
7th July, 2006 at 05:27:34 -
I love MMF2.
But yeah, they included the old KnP/TGF/MMF1 examples, graphics improved a bit. What's up with that? It doesn't show well at all what you can do with the new features!
I still don't get all the gripes about the editor in MMF, let alone MMF2. Perhaps it's because I do my sprites and such in GraphicsGale...I donno, all I know is, I gave making a sprite a shot with MMF and MMF2's built in editor, and it's practically the same crap as GraphicsGale.
I would agree with the games that come with Clickteams products though. They are often very low end, and not impressive at all. How about going to...I donno, say The Daily Click, and finding 10 games on here worthy of using, to show what can be done with your products?
My biggest gripe however, is with the way Clickteam does their manuals or help files. They read like VCR programming instructions. Meaning they are dull, and never quite cover enough to begin with. Sure, it tells you how to do stuff any trained chimp could figure out on their own, but how about examples on how a ABSOLUTE BEGINNER could make movements occur without setting up redudent KnP style paths?
See I was doing it like that, because my MMF manual sucks, and tutorials on here somtimes make my head hurt.
Of course, I've made this complaint about many manuals that come with software, but for a program that is mainly centered around game creation, there seems to be a serious void in terms of telling you how to do things you will most certainly need to know...without going on a forum and looking up info.
I went in a customized a keyboard shortcut for zooming in and out (I made it the same as photoshop.) But it doesn't work in the picture editor. I have to go and click on the little slide-bar thing.
I love folders. You can put objects in folders in the In-frame library, and you can put them in folders in the event editor. This is awesome. ^^ I love having a clean working environment. The snap to grid helps emensly. I don't know about you guys, but I always arrange in extensions in the frame in a neat row just outside the frame. Before I had to go and type in where the extension would go, and it got annoying after awhile trying to figure which multiple of 32 you are on.
As everyone has said, layers are awesome. This helps even more with the neat environment thing. I have a layer with the backdrops, a layer with all the obstacles, a layer with the GUI, and a layer with the player.
And as a bonus, it makes paralax scrolling so easy that complete newbies could do it. You can't list paralaxing backgrounds as a feature anymore because it is so easy to do. ^^
I found a bug, though: When you have a folder in the event editor it treats the grid space below the seperator as one that you can use, as apposed to blank space. When you click on it a box comes up with tons of seperators and some events and blank space. (MMF2 Standard Demo)
I will definitely be getting 2, it may not have been as huge a jump as I thought, but some of it is just getting used to the way MMF2 works.
You shouldn't go here, there are crazy swedes who mumble about cucumbers:
http://www.crobasoft.com
www.ubermicro.co.uk (Needs Vitalise! extension) was drawn completely on The Games Factory. I love that right click feature and TGF editor just feels SO right. I port stuff over from it into TGF2 etc. Is it just me or is MMF2 and stuff just the old one with a couple of new features and a new interface? Is any one going to be able to make a better game because of these features? Or is it just making it easier to make the games? I was really hoping for a 3D level maker included, but ah well, better stick with the Half Life 2 SDK.
Come on, clickteam! I'd hug you if you made a 3D games maker which is just as easy to use as MMF2! PLEASE... then we can all start fighting face to face with the latest games. (Real time physics as well please.)
2D is so much more hard work...
n/a
Dustin Gunn Gnarly Tubular Way Cool Awesome Groovy Mondo
Registered 15/12/2004
Points 2659
7th July, 2006 at 15:27:58 -
The Daily Click Said:
"Hurr the interface was switched around a bit, this sucks! I'm going back to MMF1.5, the program we all unanimously complained about when IT came out that's also functionallu much worse!"
Brilliant, guys. MMF2 is glitchy, sure, but you don't seem to mind; you just care about the minor inconveniences that everyone gets used to.
Sometimes I doubt half of you have heard of the alpha channel, and why it, along with rotation, scaling and layers makes MMF1.5 so obsolete it's silly.
Well then I guess I'm stucking creating on an obsolete tool then. Seriously, not everyone has enough cash for MMF 2, and most are not going to just hop on over to it at the snap of a finger. It will take time, and most likely an example of all this wonderful talk everyone keeps hearing.
I mean you can tell me about Alpha levels over and over, but really, if you don't show me it, I have no idea. I only have an idea because of Ovine's preview of MMF 2.
"I went in a customized a keyboard shortcut for zooming in and out (I made it the same as photoshop.) But it doesn't work in the picture editor. I have to go and click on the little slide-bar thing. "
If your mouse has a scroll wheel that'll work for zooming.
"Sometimes I doubt half of you have heard of the alpha channel, and why it, along with rotation, scaling and layers makes MMF1.5 so obsolete it's silly."
You could do alpha channel, scaling, and rotation with the Alpha Channel object, and you could do layers with the Layer Object in MMF 1.5. It's easier to do it in MMF2, but that doesn't mean MMF 1.5 is obsolete yet, especially since MMF 1.5 has a lot more extensions than MMF2.
Indeed, MMF2's layering abilities > MMF 1.5's layer object. The layer object didn't allow you do layer backdrops.
"It seems like that would only be useful if things in the background were moving FASTER than things in the foreground. . .(riding on top of a train for example? . . . which is something I plan to try, although the background would have to scroll automatically, haven't played with that yet)"
With the new layer object, you can hide/show layers and move their X and Y positions.
I looked over the list of extensions for the upcoming Bonus Pack. Since I'll need to use cosinus and stuff for my current project I looked for Advanced Math object. It wasn't in the list so I checked the Clickteam forums, Advanced Math had been suggested for conversion. I found it strange that it wasn't converted, then later I looked a little closer at the new Expression Editor and there was functions for cosinus and all that, even funtions found in the String Parser objects are there (at least I think they are from that, never used it much)
Personally, I don't think anything people say about MMF2 being a waste when compared to MMF 1.5, are anyone's concern. However, I can safely assume that if they support their theory, then they wont think twice whenever games are being released, that are of much higher quality, then they can release, with MMF 1.5's performance issues, and inability to layer backgrounds over active objects.
So even though the subject has come and gone many times, I just thought I'd put my opinion in.
Dustin Gunn Gnarly Tubular Way Cool Awesome Groovy Mondo
Registered 15/12/2004
Points 2659
9th July, 2006 at 15:48:10 -
"You could do alpha channel, scaling, and rotation with the Alpha Channel object, and you could do layers with the Layer Object in MMF 1.5. It's easier to do it in MMF2, but that doesn't mean MMF 1.5 is obsolete yet, especially since MMF 1.5 has a lot more extensions than MMF2."
No it can't do layers, and the alpha layer is not an active object, you can barely do anything with it. It doesn't even have a proper collision field, and it's slow as hell.
"I mean you can tell me about Alpha levels over and over, but really, if you don't show me it, I have no idea."
That's a funny way to word it. Alpha channel is a seperate picture underneath the regular picture that controls transparency and is SOLEY the reason why particle effects look as good as they do in commercial games.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of space
Out of time.
Haha, last time I heard of him he unblocked me on MSN and sent me "ParodyCobain.mpeg", which turned out to be some gay footage from some slaughterhouse and then blah blah, and then he thought I gave a shit, blah blah, and then we blocked each other again. Yay!
You know, he's a bit like Evil Kitty, in a way. Trying to convert us all to vegetarians or something. And Kitty is banned now...
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Edited by the Author.
.)In the properties for each layer you can change the X and Y Coefficient to make the layers scroll at different speeds! It works extremely well. 
I have to go and click on the little slide-bar thing.
