Home

USER'S MANUAL

1. A click on the Edit button will open the event editor for the global events This editor is the event editor we have seen before but there is a slight difference the objects You will notice upon opening the editor that only the system objects are presents no object of the application is presented to you You have to Import the objects in the global event editor to use them Look at the object bar you will notice one new object though named Import new objects A click on this object will open a dialog box presenting you with all the objects of all the frames of the application this might make a lot of objects Double click on the object you want to import the dialog is closed and the object is present in the editor You can now use it as a normal object You will notice a small arrow in the right corner of the icon of the object indicating that the object has been imported Behaviors Behaviors could also be called Local events Behaviors are list of events contained in one object The events are automatically activated in the frame if the object is present Behaviors allow you to create Intelligent objects that will react as soon as they are dropped in the frame without the need to define events in the frame list of events To create a behavior you must first display the properties of the object in the property toolbar just click on the object in the frame editor Then click on the Events ta
2. e Actions checkmarks from one column to another e Events on another events like this you can re order the events in your program e Closed or opened groups of events e You can of course select more than one event to drag at the same time When you drag the elements you will notice the action of the SHIFT and CONTROL keys SHIFT deletes the origin of the drag CONTROL copies inserts the drag at the new position Conditions of interest We will not review in this manual all the available conditions and actions of Multimedia Fusion this would be way too long for a printed manual We are just going to detail some of the most important ones object per object For an exhaustive list and description please refer to the electronic documentation Of course the best way to learn about an individual objects events is to experiment m ee Conditions in the special object The special object contains several interesting conditions e Always This condition is always true no test is done Useful for use within groups or for testing purpose e Never This condition is always false Very handy if you want to deactivate a line of event simply insert a Never condition at the beginning e Compare to a global value string Global values and strings are a handy way to transmit data between frames With this condition you can test their value e Compare two general values Do not confuse with the previous condition This condition enables you
3. new frame in the animation and the button deletes the current frame The slider is a very handy tool to create animations it allows you to superimpose the previous or next frame to the current frame You can easily draw the animation based on the previous frame e The hot spot The notion of hot spot is important to master for animated objects The hot spot of an object is the point that corresponds to the on screen coordinates of the object For example the hot spot of a ball or a race car seen from above will be in the middle of the object whereas the hot spot of a walking character in a platform game will be between its feet Hot spots are also important for rotations the rotations are calculated around the hot spot it is important to position the hot spot properly before attempting a rotation To edit the hot spot of a frame click on the View hot spot button in the animation editor This will display a dot in the frame and you can use the mouse to position it correctly You can also enter the co ordinates directly in the edit zones or click on one of the pre set positions available To set the hot spot position in all the frames contained in the current direction hold down the ALT key while positioning the hot spot e The action point The action point is similar to the hot spot When you do a Shoot action in the event editor the bullet is created at the position of the action point it is therefore imp
4. Pre Ew box to make it continue to run e Run while resizing As a default the runtime is in pause while you are resizing the window Check this box to make it continue to run e Do not stop screen saver when input event You might want to create interactive screen savers like small games Use this option and the screen saver will not vanish when the user presses the keyboard e Sound Multi samples Allows more than one sample to be played at the same time e Sound Play sound over frame If checked the sounds samples and music will continue from one frame to another e Sound Do not stop samples when application looses focus The default attitude is to cut the sound when you activate another application e Display Display mode This option allows you to choose the method of displaying the images used by the runtime Standard uses normal display routines and work on every machine DirectX uses Microsoft DirectX interface It is usually slower than Standard but you might need it if your application uses the Change Resolution Mode option and has a non standard resolution e g 320x200 is not available on all the machines with the Standard display mode DirectX VRAM is usually faster especially for scrolling applications but it can be also very slow with some ink effects or transitions so it depends on your application e V Sync Will synchronise the display with the vertical synchro of the monitor resulting in a clea
5. di fb d i i Le function is inserted in the edit zone of the expression editor You might have to enter one or more parameters for the function the parameter is automatically selected A click on the Next button will select the next parameter for entry Some of the available functions As for actions and conditions we are not going to review all the available functions of all the objects refer to the electronic documentation for an exhaustive list ee Special object functions e Generate a random number Random X This function very important for games will return a random number ranging from 0 and to X 1 X must be lower than 32768 e Retrieve a global value Returns the value of a global value e Retrieve a global string Returns the content of a global string a Storyboard object functions e Current number of frame Returns the number of the current frame e Frame Width Returns the width in pixels of the frame e Frame Height Returns the height of the frame in pixels nonk Oe e Current X Position of the mouse Returns the horizontal position of the mouse in the Mouse pointer and keyboard object frame This co ordinate can be negative or larger than the width of the frame if the mouse pointer is outside of the frame e Current Y Position of the mouse Same as above but vertically Timer object functions e Timer count in 1 1000 since start of frame As its name in
6. e Cut Copy Paste Delete The usual clipboard functions are Copy available in the event list editor Paste Delete Drag amp drop is like in the event editor an important part of the event list editor You can drag amp drop conditions actions remarks groups etc Printing the events The main advantage of the event list editor is the ability to print the events You will find the print options in the File submenu of the main menu e Print Prints the current list of events e Print preview Opens the print preview page for you to verify the format of printing e Page set up Opens the page set up dialog box Print Preview The print preview page shows you the events as they are going to be printed The different buttons on the top of the window are the following e Print Launch the printing e Next page Displays the next page of events TEET BAR Previous page Displays the a previous page of events e Two pages Displays two pages instead of one e Zoom in Magnify the display e Zoom out Diminish the zoom factor e Page Setup Opens the page set up dialog e Print Setup Opens the printer set up page e Close Returns to the event list editor The Page set up dialog This dialog allows you fix a certain number of parameters for the printing e Page ratio Sets the number of events printed on a page e How to display the objects With their name will print only the name of
7. e Properties Displays the properties of the application in the property toolbar Right clicking on the frame icon opens the following menu e Frame editor Opens the frame editor This option is in bold it indicates that the Frame editor option is the default option it is activated when you double click on the frame You can change this option in the preference dialog e Event editor Opens the event editor Please refer to chapter 8 for more information on the event editor e Event list editor Opens the event list editor Please refer to chapter 9 for more information e New folder Creates a new object folder This option is the same as the one you find in the frame editor it creates a new object folder in which you can drag amp drop the objects of your frame to simplify the display e New object Opens the new object dialog the same dialog than the one found in the frame editor e Rename Allows you to rename the selected frame E Frame Editor Ctrl M ERA Event Editor Ctrl e E Event List Editor Ctrl L New Folder New Object Rename do Cut Ctrl a Copy Ctrl C G Paste Criei Delete Suppr Preferences Properties e Cut Copy Paste Delete the classic edit options that work on frames e Preferences Opens the preference dialog box e Properties Displays the properties of the frame in the property toolbar Right clicking on an object icon opens the following popup menu e Edit Opens the editor for this
8. Alterable Values P Set acceleration Alterable Strings H Set deceleration Flags d Set gravity Scale Angle H Set rotating speed Set authorised directions 7 mae Path movement d Multiple movements d e Release the mouse to close the menu and you will see a new checkmark in front of the condition our new event is defined As you can see using the event editor is really simple it is a matter of choosing options in pop up menus Maybe you would think that this system is somewhat limited Nothing is further from the truth e The number of conditions and actions is very high we have added conditions and actions to cope with every aspect of an application e You can if you want have more than one condition in an event again called a compound condition The actions will be executed when all the conditions are satisfied at the same time e You can of course have more than one action for one event the actions are executed one after the other at high speed Using the event editor If you click with the right mouse button on a previously created condition it opens the following pop up menu win Insert e Edit Edits the current condition For example for a collision condition enale re opens the box in which you can choose the objects e Replace Replaces the current condition by a new one Cut e Insert Inserts a new condition after the current one Useful to make Copy comp
9. To make you an idea about the speed use the Try movement button e Deceleration Indicates that the ball will slow down gradually and finally stop If O then the ball never stops This can be thought of as friction e Moving at start If checked the object will move at the beginning of the application If not it will be stopped and you will have to start it with a Start action e Number of angles You can choose between 8 16 or 32 angles The more angles the finer the movement will be e Randomiser This property adds a little bit of random in every bounce making the ball bounce in unpredictable directions 0 indicates no random whatsoever e Security When a ball get stuck in bounces it does always the same pattern the security property is important it automatically unblocks the object after a certain amount of bounces THE PATH MOVEMENT The path movement is a very powerful movement that allows you to record the mouse and draw a path that your object will follow during runtime You actually draw the path on the screen with the mouse Movement Type Path Edit noemen SS m Edit As you can see the properties of the path movement are limited to a simple Edit button A click on this button opens the path movement editor The buttons from left to right W Path Movement Setup e New line Draws a single line with the mouse If you click with the right mouse button to end the line a new line will be
10. they are played directly from the disk Pros you must use this option for large samples several Megabytes Cons here too many induce a small delay before playing the sound The Binary tab allows you to embed files into your application These files can be opened directly from the application by objects that need them This allows you for example to protect graphic files played by the Active Picture object or a text file displayed by a RichEdit object Note some objects like the video objects will extract the file to a temporary file on the hard disc before playing it and not all the 3rd party extensions use this feature The Binary tab is only present in Multimedia Fusion The extension tab presents to you all the extension objects used by the application Appendix 6 Extensions You have seen in this documentation that Multimedia Fusion contains a lot of different objects Not all of these objects are included in the main program most of them are stored in external files and are called extension objects The internal objects are The Backdrop object The Quick Backdrop object e The Active object e The Counter object e The String object e The Score object e The Lives object e The Formatted text object e The Question and Answers object e The Sub Application object All the other objects are external objects their filename ends with the suffix MFX They are stored in two folders on your disk e The edit ti
11. 3 The editor toolbar This toolbar changes depending on the current editor and allows a quick access to the editor functions 4 The project window This very important part of the interface presents the current project or application in detail in a structured way 5 The property explorer This window shows all the options available for the currently selected object 6 The library window This show the content of the libraries A library contain graphics and or objects ready for you to use 7 The main editor screen This area displays the currently selected editor 8 Not shown the layer toolbar used in the frame editor 1 Edit time Vs Run time Multimedia Fusion is an application used to create applications and used in the following two modes e Edit time This is when you create your application drop the objects and enter the events This is the design time e Run time refered to as Runtime Once your application is ready to work or during testing you can launch the runtime and the objects come to life as a full program The runtime can be launched via the buttons of the Run toolbar From left to right e Run project Launches the first application of your project e Run application Launches the current application E L4 e Run frame Available if you are editing a frame run the frame only You will find the same options in the Run submenu of the main menu 2 The Workspace Toolbar We will start
12. Window control object Control the size position of the application window with this object Internet objects e FTP object Download and upload files from the Internet with this object Only in MMF e Vitalize Plugin object Control the Vitalize Plugin from this object Vitalize Enables you to display your creations in an Internet browser Math objects e Double precision object Calculate in double precision with the functions of this object Only in Multimedia Fusion Developer Network objects e Network object Communicate between two distant machines using this object Only in MMF Printer objects Print object Print images and text with this object Storage objects e INI object Create read and manage INI files e Array object Store array data on disc System objects e OS object Retrieve information about the machine the version of Windows and the environment variables This object is only available in Multimedia Fusion Developer Text objects e Question and answers object Create quiz with this object who displays the questions and the answers automatically e Rich edit object Display and edit complex text with this object and create your own version of Wordpad Only in MMF e Formatted text object Displays Rich Text Format texts in a graphical environment e String object Display and retrieve simple strings of text Date amp Time objects e Date amp Time object Display a clock a calendar or a countdo
13. accessed from the Event Editor You can have the string change its text during runtime to anything you might require The string object is also an invaluable object to store strings retrieve them and make string calculations in the event editor 6 4 Object inventory In this chapter we will describe several of the remaining objects briefly to give you a quick view of all the possibilities contained in Multimedia Fusion If you want to discover more about an object you will find its documentation in the help file Or you can just drop the object in the frame inspect its properties conditions and actions most objects are self explanatory Audio objects e CDAudio object Use this object to play the audio tracks of a CD inserted in the CD drive of your computer e MCI object Using Windows MCI interface you can play sounds and music e Mixer object Change the volume of the sounds and music on your computer Control objects e Clickblocker object Block the clicks of the mouse with this object Only in MMF e Analog joystick Allow you to test the position of an analogue joystick plugged on the computer Data objects e Array object Store information in an array that you can share between frames e Counter object Store and display numbers e Datagrid object Display data in a grid like presentation like an Excel sheet This object is only available in Multimedia Fusion Developer e Search object Search for strings of text in f
14. action a certain number of times There are a number of ways of achieving this you can use the Repeat condition from the special object menu or use a counter to count the number of repeats Multimedia Fusion provides you with a safe and very fast way of repeating the same actions the fast loops What is a fast loop A fast loop is a system that will repeat the same events a given number of times at fast speed How to create a fast loop First of all you need to initialise the loop Open the action pop up menu of the special object and open the Fast loop submenu You will find an action called Start loop This action asks for two parameters e The name of the loop This must be a string depicting the name of your loop choose it short and easy to recognise e The number of times to loop Enter the number you wish here Now you need to create a new On loop condition Click on New condition and open the condition pop up menu of the special object In the bottom of the menu you will find an On loop entry Choose it The program now asks for the name of the loop enter the same name as before You now have a new line of condition Now enter the actions you want to execute after this condition How does it work When Multimedia Fusion encounters the Start loop action it searches for the On loop conditions of the program If it finds one it compares the name of the loop if it is the same it executes the acti
15. another frame You can copy a complete frame from one application and copy it in another application Applications and projects plication 1 E Frame 1 It is possible to open more than one application at the same time in ae eae i the workspace toolbar Simply choose Load file or Create new E pr sentation from the menu option as many time as you want The applications a z a are displayed one after the other in the workspace toolbar II Hi Score The picture shows a workspace toolbar with 3 applications loaded T Back maa Sariro at the same time The notion of projects A project is a set of applications For example the first application could be the title of your multimedia presentation the second the main pages and the third one the conclusion MMF provides you with a way of working easily with more than one application and allows the developer to keep related applications together To create a project simply load your applications in the workspace toolbar and choose the menu option File Save project enter a name and click on OK A new file will be created with the MFW extension Next time you use MMF do not load individually each application but load the MFW file all the applications will be loaded automatically The first application displayed in the workspace toolbar is called the Main application it is the first application to be run when you click on Run Project Projects are only presen
16. create a Counter object Choose the Insert object option in the frame editor pop up menu or in the Insert submenu in MMF main menu Then choose the Counter object and drop it somewhere in the frame The icon of the object should appear in the left pane of the frame editor uzm Properties of the counter object When you click on a counter object in the frame editor its properties are displayed in the property toolbar Settings Yale A E E E EE ts Initial value o o Minimum Vale 999999999 Maximum Value 999999999 Display a Type Text e Initial value Enter the initial value of the counter the counter will contain this value when the frame starts The default value is 0 e Minimum value Defines the lowest possible value contained by the counter e Maximum value Defines the highest possible value contained by the counter Note you choose to display your counter as a horizontal or vertical bar you must enter correct values in these two fields otherwise the bar will not be displayed properly e Display type This combo box proposes several choices on how to display your counter e Text The counter is displayed as a string of text using the chosen font You can choose the font in the Text tab of the property toolbar e Hidden The counter is not shown But you can still use it in the event editor to perform calculations and retain numbers e Numbers The counter is displayed with graphical numbers A click on the E
17. notice the following properties Build Build Filename Install Settings e Build type Choose between the three possibilities application screen saver or internet e Build filename As a default if this property is left empty the name of the built file will be the name of your application with the appropriate suffix EXE SCR or CCN You can if you want change this with this property e Install settings If you decide to create an installer click on this button to edit its settings To build your application use the menu option Build Application in the File menu To build an entire project choose the Build All option Appendix 10 Vitalize Vitalize Is an Internet plugin that plays Multimedia Fusion applications built as Internet applications directly in a Web browser MS Internet Explorer FireFox etc Please refer to the electronic on for more information
18. the Tape mouse button Set pause e Set pause Same as the Set a pause button Set speed e Set speed Allows you to enter the speed of that node See e Set name Allows you to give a name to this node Names can be Delete important for advanced users you can in the programing of events detect when a node is reached and take action accordingly THE PINBALL MOVEMENT The Pinball movement is a bouncing ball movement with gravity The ball bounces like a pinball when colliding with obstacles and on the floor This movement is only present in Multimedia Fusion e Gravity Indicates the gravity factor from Movement 0 no gravity to 100 strong gravity The Movement Movement 1 Pinball movement gravity affects the shape of the bounces and the height of the bounces Gravity 25 e Deceleration Indicates a deceleration Dereleration Move at start Initial speed 50 O no deceleration to 100 immediate stop Initial direction 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 factor that will stop the ball after a while From e Move at start If checked the object will move when the frame starts e Initial speed Indicates the initial speed of the object if it is to move at start e Initial direction Contains the initial direction of the object when the frame starts THE MOUSE CONTROLLED MOVEMENT This movement is controlled by the user with the mouse Basically the object moves accordingly to the movements of
19. the border is replaced by the resizing border Just grab one of the handles to resize the object If you click a third time on the object the border is replaced by the rotation border Grab the handle and you can rotate the object Warning for complex objects the rotation process can be quite long As soon as you click on an object its properties are displayed in the property toolbar Multiple selections You can select more than one object at the same time either hold the SHIFT key down while clicking on the objects or draw a rectangle around the objects You will see that the colors of the selection rectangle are different The first object of the selection is called the main object and its border is drawn in red The other objects are drawn in blue The main object is important for certain order and size options of the frame editor You can if you want change the main object by clicking on it with the CTRL key down If more than one object is selected at the same time the property toolbar displays only the properties that are common to the objects selected A change of one of the property will affect all the selected objects at once The frame editor pop up menu When you click with the right mouse button somewhere in the frame editor or on an object Multimedia Fusion displays a pop up menu Edit e Edit Opens the edit dialog of the object For example for active there Object object it will open the animation edito
20. the cross and the selected object Once in relative mode you have access to an option screen Create Object Originating fram Hot Spot e Located at a user defined point means that the point is calculated by adding the offsets to the position of the object Located in direction of object enforces Multimedia Fusion to take the rotation of the relative object into account and rotate the coordinate accordingly Imagine a tank seen from above you can turn it in every direction with this option the bullets will follow the movement of the gun e Orientation Normal will use the default orientation of the created object In direction of Object will equal the direction of the created object to the direction of the relative object in our tank Action Point Located A User defined point In direction of Violet Orientation C Normal In direction of Wiolet example the bullet would be created in the direction of the gun pS Player object actions e Score Set score Allows you to change the score of the player You can also add to or subtract from the score The score will be reflected in a score object if it exists on the frame e Lives Set number of lives Allows you to change the number of lives of the player The number of lives will be reflected in an eventual lives object on the frame Active object actions The active object contains a lot of actions designed to control the movement and
21. the mouse like the cursor Movement Movement Movement 1 Mouse Controlled eee l Edit movement Player Indicates which player controls the movement can be from 1 to 4 Edit Click on this button to edit the mouse controlled movement It opens the following box on the frame The zone drawn with handles on the frame represents the Player zone of movement allowed for the object Drag the handles with the mouse pointer to enlarge reduce the zone Click on Try movement to see the movement in action Please note that the mouse pointer disappears when the mouse movement is running you have to press ESCAPE to quit the movement demo THE EIGHT DIRECTIONS MOVEMENT This movement is also controlled by a player using a joystick or the arrow keys It is a simple movement the object goes in the direction wanted by the player A total of 8 directions are possible counting diagonals Movement e Player Choice of the player who controls tials Tanaina ala the movement from 1 to 4 Type Eight Directions Player 1 e Directions Click on this property and select Directions 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 the possible directions out of the 8 possible Staab caer If a direction is unselected then the object Speed will not be able to follow it even if the player speed presses the correct key on the keyboard Deceleration 50 aks i a R e Initial direction Click and choose the initial cc
22. tutorial will take around one hour of your time to complete and will give you a basic working knowledge of Multimedia Fusion You will find other tutorials for multimedia applications and games on the CDRom in the tutorial folder heymaintinterface teal _P8e Lane Outils Fen tre Aide 33 levell 1 i4 gt 2880 8 j ooe 4 EM Ak Bua Ee Ff Workspace Toolbar K jackforest 9 pr sentation B levell 1 max t ni_coll Em coll_max plateforme wu ronce ww ronce 3 gt Active 2 Properties jackforest Wanalala Active 4 SET ap 4 Graphic mode 16 million colors Active 5 Build Build Type Stand alone Application Build Filename e Image Filters if Edit Active 6 Sound Filters Edit Install Settings Edit Build Options Compression Level Normal Active 7 Compress Sounds Include external files No Item Select Select an item to see its description y Air Local Library ae y i Knp ba EZ ScreenTitle ScreenHighsc SugarHorizontal Sugarverticali SugarVvertical2 Sky BoardLives BoardScore Pistachio m deqgjoo L ALEAT ae D E A The picture above represents The Multimedia Fusion interface The main interface parts are as follows 1 The menu bar This contains all the options available for you through out MMF 2 The toolbars These contain icons for quick access to MMF Multimedia Fusion functions
23. EAM HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES CLICKTEAM www clickteam com License SUMMARY Credits Welcome The Main Interface 1 Edit time Vs Run time 2 The Workspace Toolbar 3 The Property Toolbar 4 5 6 The Storyboard Editor The Frame Editor The Objects 6 1 The Picture Editor 6 2 The Animation Editor 6 3 The properties of the Active Object 6 4 Object inventory 7 The Event Editor 8 The Expression Editor 9 The Event list Editor Appendices iP The qualifiers O ON O OT FP ODN Global events and behaviors Fast loops Creating a scrolling game Editing the data elements of an application Extensions The runtime options The debugger Creating your standalone application Notes O on fk O 12 13 15 21 21 24 29 40 43 58 62 65 65 67 68 69 71 73 T9 77 79 81 Credits CLICK TEAM 1996 2006 Clickteam All rights reserved This program was created and programmed by Yves Lamoureux amp Fran ois Lionet Anders Riggelsen Andrew Kourosh Andrew Mather Andy Hewitt Ashley Gullen Chris Branch Chris Newhouse Chris Street David Clark David Evans Daymian Tiedemann Donald May Erik Gustafsson Graphics by Nicolas Sourdeval Clickteam is D T Holder Francis Poulain Francois Lionet Jason Darby Jeff Vance Rhon Schlick Yves Lamoureux Special thanks to Eva Isotalo Gareth Ben Martin Gareth Lowe Ga
24. Properties e Initial Direction As the name indicates this property sets the direction of the object when the application starts Click on it and it opens a direction selector Initial direction This direction selector shows 32 possible directions Highlight the ones you wish by clicking on the filled in square for that direction Clicking a second time will remove that direction from use If more than one direction is selected a direction will be chosen at random between the selected ones THE BOUNCING BALL MOVEMENT This movement simulates the movement of a ball the object goes in straight lines until it encounters an object where it can bounce or otherwise react on this object This is the movement of choice for break outs pool or other ball type games The bouncing ball movement can also be used by advanced users in a variety of ways as it is very flexible Movement re oh eee PETE e ay aE Type Bouncing Ball Initial direction 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Speed a i i PERSEE Deceleration 0 i Moving at start Bounce Hof anges 32 Randomizer 20 Security 60 e Initial direction Same as above e Try movement Click this button and you will see your object move accordingly to the settings in the properties Useful for testing e Speed The speed of the object from O to 100 In Multimedia Fusion all the speeds accelerations and decelerations range from 0 stopped to 100 fast
25. THE GAMES FACTORY 2 MULTIMEDIA FUSION 2 USER S MANUAL 0 MULTIMEDIA FUSION PRESENTATIONS APPLICATIONS SCREENSAVERS Health warning Some people experience epileptic seizures when viewing flashing lights or patterns These persons may experience seizures while watching TV or playing video games Consult your doctor before playing video games if you have an epileptic condition You should read the following terms and conditions carefully before using this software Your use of this software indicates your full acceptance of this license agreement and warranty 1 GRANTING OF LICENSE Clickteam as Licenser grants to you the Licensee a non exclusive license to use this software program hereinafter referred to as the lt SOFTWARE in accordance with the terms contained in this license You may use the SOFTWARE on a single computer you may install the program on several machines provided that it is used simultaneously on a single machine You may access the SOFTWARE through a network provided that you have obtained individual licenses for the software to cover all workstations that will access the software through the network 2 NO REVERSE ENGINEERING You may not modify disassemble or decompile the SOFTWARE or the stand alone applications created with the SOFTWARE in whole or part 3 STAND ALONE APPLICATIONS The SOFTWARE may be used to create an unlimited number of stand alone applications and screen save
26. ain actions for the principal objects te Special object actions e Change a global value Allows you to modify the value of a global value e Set global string Changes the content of one of the global strings e Group of events Activate Activates a group of events all the events within the group are tested again The On group activation condition is also called e Group of events Deactivate Deactivate a group of events all the events within the group will become inactive e Randomise Initialise the value of the random generator Random numbers are generated from a mathematical calculation If you set the randomise seed to a specific value the list of numbers generated will always be the same very useful to make demos of your product where you expect the numbers to be the same at each session e Fast loops Start loop Initiate a fast loop More info in appendix 3 q4 Speaker object actions The speaker object actions allow you to play music and samples e Play sample Opens the sound selector for you to choose a sample This sample can be part of another application loaded in Multimedia Fusion an application on disc or a simple WAV file on disc If you check the Uninterruptible checkmark the sample will not be interrupted until it ends e Play and loop sample Same as above but also asks for a number of times to play the sample e Play music Allows you to select a MIDI music to play using the music selecto
27. also a moveable object with all the according actions Here are the most important actions more specific to this object e Change alterable string Modifies the string contained in the object The result is immediately displayed on the screen if the object is visible e Set paragraph Changes the current paragraph displayed by the object 8 The Expression Editor Many actions and conditions in Multimedia Fusion ask for you to enter a number or a calculation In order to do that they present you with the Expression editor The expression editor is a powerful tool that enables you to make calculations even complex ones and retrieve information from objects like their coordinates and include them in the calculation E Set Score Enter ees to calculate LeS La Crea Cesa elt Loa C Porere datenon caet SS U G Wek L a JJA Cale The expression editor looks like a calculator It consists of e An edit zone in which you can type your calculation e Number buttons to enter the digits e Operator buttons like Mod and brackets to perform your calculations e Mathematical functions like sine and cosine e Text functions like Left Right etc e A Retrieve data from object button to gather information from existing objects in the application e A Check current expression button that tests the validity of the expression It displays Valid expression if the expression is correct and Syntax error if not T
28. and lines The columns are the following No Thumbnail Comments a Passw 1 BES 640 by 480 i Title level1 1 3 Password Door Title scoring 3 Password 640 by 480 e Number shows the number of the frame in the application e Thumbnail shows a reduced version of the frame e Comments displays information about the frame Each line corresponds to the specifics of a given frame The comments section contains several important data e Title the name of the frame Click on the name to rename it e Password you can define a password for each frame A menu option will be available during runtime allowing the user to enter a password If the password matches the one you have defined the application will run the corresponding frame e e indicates a Multimedia Frame e E fade in transition icon This icon will be activated if a fade in transition is defined Click on the icon to insert a transition e E fade out transition Same as above but the transition is used when the frame quits Click on the icon to insert a transition e Shows the size of the frame in pixels Just click on the number to resize the frame This size is the same as the one displayed in the Size property of the frame Inserting a fade transition Fade in and out transitions are used to make Transition set up Module various effects between frames The fade in transition makes the transition between Transition Advanc
29. animations Most of the actions are self explanatory let s concentrate on some important actions e Movement Stop Stops the movement e Movement Start Restarts a stopped movement e Movement Bounce Makes the object bounce when colliding with another object or an obstacle e Direction Set direction Allows you to change the current direction of the object You can if you want calculate the new direction or set it with the direction selector e Direction Look in direction of Makes the object face another object If you do it constantly you can create intelligent bullets that look for their target e Shoot an object This action is rather frequently used in games It allows you to shoot another object First of all you have to indicate which object to shoot using the same dialog box as for the Create Object action Once this done another dialog box appears e Speed of object Enter the speed of the Shoot an Object bullet e Use the direction of object if selected the Speed of abject Lii bullet will be shot based on the direction of the Direction source object just like our little tank above Use the direction of BallGolden e Shoot in selected directions Opens a Shoot in selected directions direction selector in which you can define the Shoot in direction of 14 54 from Violet directions to use If more than one direction is selected then a random direction within the selected ones is chosen
30. another Use it in games to make a ball bounce etc e Collisions Overlapping another object This condition is constantly true as long as the objects are overlapping each other e Collision Backdrop This condition will be true if the object is colliding with a background object Backdrop or Quick backdrop marked Obstacle or Platform e Collision Overlapping a backdrop This condition is constantly true if the object is overlapping a background object marked as Obstacle or Platform e Position test position of object This condition will ask you select which border of the frame to test and it will be true if the object goes through the given border e Alterable values Compare to one of the alterable values Allow you to compare a value to one of the alterable values If the comparison is true the condition is true e Alterable values Compare to one of the alterable strings Allow you to compare a string to the content of one of the alterable strings om Conditions of the counter object e Compare the counter to a value Allows you to make a comparison with the value of the counter If the comparison is true then the condition is true Actions of interest The number of actions in Multimedia Fusion is even greater than the number of conditions There are actions for every object in every domain Refer to the electronic documentation for an exhaustive list of all the actions We will concentrate on the m
31. are pieces of text intermixed with the events that describe the logic of the application You should as much as possible comment your code to make it more readable When you choose this option the comment entry box is opened Type the text of your comment in the edit zone choose the font with the Choose font button the colors with the appropriate buttons and click on OK Here s how this comment is displayed in the event editor All the events AR gt 1 Some objects hidden 8 el 3 Re KAR KI S 1 Here enter the text of my remark 2 e Collision between and bail 3 New condition As you can see comments are very important to make a code clearer Do not worry comments do not take any time during the execution of the application as they are totally skipped by the runtime engine Comments are extremely useful if multiple developers are sharing files Also many Clickteam developers use the background color as an indication of the complexity of a specific event e Insert A new event Will open the object condition dialog for you to choose a new condition and automatically create a new event with this condition e Insert A group of events Group of events can be a very handy way to simplify and organise your code Basically a group is a set of events that have some level of commonality and are grouped together Groups can be deactivated in this case ALL the events within the group are ignored You can use an action to rea
32. as the source object they have the same name Very useful for certain types of games for example a Breakout game in which you need to create a wall of bricks e Order submenu To Front The order submenu allow you to set the display priority of the To Back objects ie which object is in front of what object To front and To back option are self explanatory Forward one and Forward One Bo cnard ane Backward one moves the object in the list of objects of the editor The number indicated when you select an object is the i indicator of the position of the object in the list The lower the number the more in the back the object will be Order by X or Y sorts the objects from their co ordinates For example you can create a fake perspective effect if you sort the object on the Y co ordinates the objects closer to the bottom of the screen will be in front of the object positioned higher on the screen eft e Align in frame submenu ee This submenu allows you to position the object at key places in the Ze frame For example Left will put the objects on the left border of the Right frame ia e Order objects submenu Left This submenu is only activated if more than one F wert Center oa Batt object is selected at the same time It allows you to Ee oe OLEON align the objects together The base position taken Right is the position of the main object selected red border For example Top alignment on the top wil
33. automatically inserted e Tape mouse Records the mouse movement click with the left mouse button and draw the path you wish The recording ends when you release the mouse e Set a pause To use this button you must first select a node in the path In the dialog box you can enter a time the object will wait for that amount of time when playing back the path e Loop the movement Makes the movement restart when it reaches the end of the path Warning the object is not repositioned at the original location so it will continue on its path e Reverse at end If selected the path movement will reverse when the end is reached ina Ping Pong effect When it reaches the first node and if the Loop movement button is set it will restart forward e Reposition at end This option will enforce the position of the object to the original location when the movement end e Color selection Choose the color you want to display the path e Speed You must first select one or more nodes to use this control Sets the speed of the current node from 0 stopped to 100 maximum speed e Try movement Click to try the movement and immediately see the results You can with the mouse select one or more nodes move them around and delete them with the delete key A click with the right mouse button on one of the nodes opens the following menu Draw line Same as the Draw line button Draw line TE E e Record mouse Same as
34. aw the alpha channel The properties of the Backdrop object The backdrop object does not contain a lot of properties But you will find in the Runtime options tab of the property toolbar an Obstacle property This property is particularly important for platform games if selected the object will generate collisions with the moving objects The Obstacle property is a combo box with four choices e None the object is not an obstacle e Obstacle the object is a classic obstacle e Platform for use with the platform movement allow the player to walk on the object and go through it from bottom to top e Ladder defines the object as a ladder The player will be able to climb on the object to go from one platform to another THE ACTIVE OBJECT The Active object may be the most important object of Multimedia Fusion It is a versatile and powerful object As opposed to the backdrops objects the active object takes an active part in the animation and movement in the frame it can be animated can move around the frame generate collisions be controlled by the joystick store its own values etc To create An Active object Choose the Insert object option in the frame editor pop up menu or in the Insert submenu in MMF main menu Then choose the Active object and drop it somewhere in the frame M rrr Of course you can draw what you want in the object To open the Multimedia Fusion Animation editor right click on the active o
35. b Ne y ljOj 0 O a a aaaaaa Behavior 1 Click on the New button to create a new behavior You can have more than one behavior per object You can rename it by clicking on it Click on the Edit button to open the event editor for this behavior As with the global event editor the behavior event editor is the classic event editor you have seen before but not all the objects are present in the object bar You will find the object containing the behavior and the Import new object object As with the global events editor a click on this object presents to you all the objects of the frame for you to import them Note when you are editing the events of the frame the objects containing a behavior are marked by a little B in the corner right of the object s icon If you click with the right mouse button on this object in the object bar you will have an option to open the behavior of the object and edit it Global events and behaviors can become an important part of your application They can help to reduce dramatically the number of frame events needed to handle each frame Appendix 2 The qualifiers Qualifiers are a way of reducing the complexity of the list of events of the frame Imagine you create a game in which the player must avoid a lot of different traps Without qualifiers you would normally have to detect the collision between the player and trap for each trap if you have a lot of those
36. be published by Clickteam Appendix 7 The runtime options If you display the properties of an application by clicking on the application in the workspace toolbar you will notice a Runtime options tab This page contains important properties to fine tune the runtime e Frame rate Set the number of frames we ee Tk _ bs per second of the runtime The default RUNIE ORHANS aoe circ ee EN value is 50 it can go from 1 one step of Frame Rate 50 DO Machine independent speed animation per second to 1000 twenty ry dun Oe times as fast as the default settings O Run while resizing B 7 p l l B B l e Machine independent speed This Do not stop screen saver when input event THERI option is specially designed for heavy Sound options on l i ET multsenples graphics games with big objects that Play sounds over frames take some time to be drawn If you T Do not stop samples when application loses Focus notice a slow down in the animation Display options Wletandard meaning the runtime cannot run at 50 DO syne ae EE frames per seconds it might be worth Enable visual Themes ee to try this option PUES eee op emmeenemnsmmmnnennnminiunnniinmninnniniunnnmmniiane beets Rie cee o e Run when minimised If unchecked i TE It 205 an eener ron oE ee eee the runtime will go in pause mode when ioe Cortrols MEE the window is minimised Check this italize aee l
37. bject and choose the Edit option 6 2 The Animation Editor As its name indicates the animation editor allows you to edit the animations of the active object The active object contains twelve basic animations and you can define extra animations as well The animations are the following e Stopped displayed when the object is static e Walking displayed when the object moves at a slow pace e Running displayed when the object is moving at a fast pace speed greater than 75 e Appearing displayed when the object is created e Disappearing displayed when the object is destroyed e Bouncing displayed when the object is bouncing e Shooting displayed when the object is shooting an object e Jumping for platform movement displayed when the player is jumping e Falling for platform movement displayed when the player is falling e Climbing for platform movement displayed when the player is climbing a ladder e Crouch down for platform movement displayed when the player is crouching e Stand up for platform movement displayed when the player is un crouching e User animations an unlimited number of animations that you can add to the object You can name them as you want Each animation can have up to thirty two directions For example you can define a walking animation for when the object goes to the right top bottom and left Why so many animations and directions When you attach a movement to an object see later the object mo
38. bo box object Create combo boxes and handle them e Cursor object Change the shape of the mouse pointer to your heart s desire Only in MMF e Dialog box object This powerful object allows you to create dialog boxes and manage them in your application This object is only available in Multimedia Fusion Developer e Edit object Open text edit zones on the frame useful when asking the user for text information e Explorer object Open explorer windows in your application to display the content of disc drives This object is only available in Multimedia Fusion Developer e List object Open list boxes in the frame of your application much like the Combo Box object e Listview object Displays and manage a listview control Microsoft way of displaying lists of items This object is only available in Multimedia Fusion Developer e Pop up menu object Create and display pop up menus in your application Only in MMF e Window shape object Change the shape of the application window to whatever you like and create animated items floating on the desktop e Static text object Display non interactive text with this control e Sub application object Start and run MMF applications within your main application e System box object Create graphical buttons and toolbars with this object Only in MMF e Tree control object Display directories drives and data in a tree like structure This object is only available in Multimedia Fusion Developer e
39. ction slightly to make the search more varied Alterable Value A of e 0 147 Every 00 25 Set direction to Dir We 1 Random 3 18 if OPPONENT leaves the screen wrap it to the opposite side of the screen S leaves the play area f Wrap 19 As you can see on the picture the events the remarks and the groups are listed one after the other A click on the number of the event opens the following pop up menu e Edit Edits the current line a group or a remark aa z Close 4 new line be Cu F t e Insert A comment Inserts a new remark in the Copy AREER code Paste Delete e Close Only available for groups closes the current group If you click on a closed group this option is replaced with Open e Insert A new line Opens the New condition dialog for you to choose a new condition A new line of events is then created Insert A group of events Opens the New group dialog for you to enter the name of a new group This one is created as soon as you close the box e Cut Copy Paste Delete Usual clipboard functions A click with the right mouse button on a condition or an action opens this menu e Edit Edits the parameters of the action or the condition Edit e Replace Replace the action or condition by a new one Replace afi Insert e Insert Inserts a new action or condition Megate e Negate Negates the condition if possible eii
40. ctivate the entire group all at once Furthermore groups can be closed by double clicking on them it instantly hides all the events in a single line the title of the group To create a new group you have to enter its name in the group definition dialog Enter the title of your group in the proper field You Group Events can decide to protect the group with a password Title of the group enter the password in the two password fields My group Your group will be able to be closed but to open Password protection it you would need the password Use this option 1l if you distribute your code for others to look at but Confirm password do not want other people s eyes to peek inside this particular group of events Warning if you loose X Active when frame starts your password there is no way to open the groups So you should restrain from password protecting your code until the end of the development Active when frame starts if this box is checked the group will be activated when the frame starts if not it will be inactivated Deactivated groups are greyed out in the event editor e Cut Copy Paste Delete The clipboard functions are available for events Drag amp drop in the event editor Using the event editor you find soon find out that drag amp drop is an indispensable part of the development process You can drag e Conditions on one another or from one event to another
41. d object s pop up action menu and choose the action Scrolling Center Window position in frame and choose to center the position on your main character Voila If you run the frame you will see that the screen automatically scrolls and follows the character Static objects As a default active objects will follow the scrolling their position will remain static relative to the scrolling background But for certain objects like the score and lives objects you need them to stay at the same position on the screen and ignore the scrolling This can be done by un checking an important property of the objects To access this property click in the frame editor on the object and in the property toolbar click on the Runtime options tab Uncheck the property name Follow the frame your object will ignore the scrolling from now on Parallax scrolling game Parallaxing is best described as distant object moving slower than close objects Imagine you are driving down the road and looking out a side window Objects in the far distance mountains the moon stars appear to move very slowly or not at all Objects at a mid distance hills buildings trees move by more slowly than close objects such as the road signs This perceived appearance of movement is called Parallaxing You can create parallax scrolling with Multimedia Fusion quite simply e Set the application window size and frame size as explained before e In the frame e
42. dicates Timer count hours minutes seconds 1 100 Returns the value of the timer since the start of the frame wi Create object functions e Total number of objects Returns the count of all the objects in the frame Useful for debugging your application a Player object functions e Current value of score Returns the score of the player e Current number of lives Returns the number of lives of the player Active object functions e Movement Speed Returns the speed of the object from 0 to 100 e Animation Current direction value Returns the number of the direction of the object from O to the right to 31 e Position X Co ordinate Returns the X coordinate of the object the position on screen of the horizontal hot spot of the image e Position Y Co ordinate Same as above vertically e Values Alterable values Returns the content of one of the alterable values e Values Alterable strings Returns the content of one of the alterable strings of the object e Count Number of object Returns the number of this kind of object created on the frame ma Counter object functions The counter object is a moveable object the function menu contains all the default movement functions Let s concentrate of the functions specific to this object e Current value Returns the value of the counter e Minimum value Returns the minimum value of the counter e Maximum value Returns the maximum value of th
43. dit button will open the picture editor with all the digits ready to be modified To import a font directly select all the frames and click on the Import font tool of the picture editor Choose a new font and click on OK the font is imported e Vertical bar This option makes the counter Display ertical bar displayed as a vertical progress bar pack Up Count indicates the direction of the bar up or Filtype Solid color down Fill type can be Solid color or Gradient 2 Ml Res 60 179 113 just like the Quick backdrop object Color allows you to choose the color of the bar in the palette e Horizontal bar This option makes the Display Type Horizontal bar counter displayed as a horizontal progress Count From right bar Count indicates the direction of the Filtype Gradient progression bar either From right or From let MB Rce 60 179 113 Color 2 I RGE 255 0 0 Left Fill type can here too be chosen between ry vad eae Solid color or gradient e Animation Displays the counter as images The value gives the number of the image to display based on the minimum and maximum values Click on the Edit button to open the picture editor and edit the images THE STRING OBJECT The String object contains a string of text It can display the string using a selected font It is the object to use as soon as you have some text to display To create a String object Choose the Insert object option in the frame
44. ditor open the Layer toolbar and create as many layers as you need of scrolling planes e Drop the objects in the planes to create your display e Click on each layer in the layer toolbar to open its properties in the property toolbar You will notice two properties X Coefficient and Y Coefficient Each of them represents the speed of scrolling of this layer relative to the position in the frame If the number is below 1 the layer will be slower For example a coefficient of 0 5 will make the layer scroll twice as slow as the main layer A coefficient of 2 will make it scroll twice as fast e You should always have you main character and action in the layer with a coefficient of 1 e Eventually check the Wrap property for layers that go faster than the main layer to ensure the graphics are always present on the screen e Now go in the event editor and enter the Center window position in frame action Appendix 5 Editing the data elements of an application If you click with the right mouse button on the name of an application in the workspace toolbar you will find an option called Data elements This very powerful option allows you to manage the data contained in your application Choose this option and it opens the Data element dialog box E Data Elements Sounds Musics Binary Data External Files Extensions Name Size s allright 34 Kb 33 kb cannon02 61 Kb drums13 15Kb Estaci enemgun 5Kb expl
45. e You can have up to 32 different animations for a single animation To increase or reduce the number of animations use the slider under the control the different steps are 4 directions 8 directions 16 and 32 32 is the finest and you should use it for important objects as it consumes the most memory If you click with the right button on the filled dot of an existing direction you open a pop up menu e Cut Copy Paste Delete The usual clipboard functions Cut they all work with animation directions Copy e Create rotated directions This powerful option will Paste create all the remaining directions from the selected Delete ones by rotating the pictures For example if your current direction is right all the other directions top left bottom if you have 4 directions selected will be created The object is rotated around its hot spot see later Create rotated directions Create opposite direction Flip Horizontally Flip Vertically e Create opposite direction Same as above but the Invert Frame Order action only creates one new direction the opposite e Flip horizontally Will reverse all the frames of the animation horizontally e Flip vertically Will reverse all the frames of the animation vertically e Invert frame order Will replace the first frame of the animation by the last one the second by the previous etc e Direction options This tab present you w
46. e Shoot in direction of opens the position selector as for the Create object action for you to choose a point in the frame it can be relative to another object Important note as stated in the animation editor chapter the bullets are shot from the action point of the parent object be sure to define these action points correctly for a better visual effect Also note that the shooting animation of the parent object is started when the action is executed If it is defined you obtain a nice effect on screen e Alterable values Set Changes one of the alterable values of the object e Alterable strings Set Changes one of the alterable strings of the object e Destroy This very important action allows you to destroy the objects instantly If a Disappearing animation is defined it will be automatically played before the destruction of the object If a fade out transition is defined also it will be played before destruction GE Counter object actions Counter are moveable objects you will find in them all the movement control actions that you can find in the active object Let s concentrate on the actions specific to this object e Set counter Changes the value of the counter If the counter is visible the value is reflected in the display e Set minimum value Changes the minimum value of the counter e Set maximum value Changes the maximum value of the counter abc String object actions The string object is
47. e counter abe String object functions The string object is also a moveable object it contains movement functions The specific functions are the following e Alterable string Returns the string contained in the object e Text of a paragraph Returns the text of one of the paragraphs defined in the string object This asks for one parameter the number of the paragraph to be returned 9 The Event list Editor The event list editor is the fifth main editor contained in Multimedia Fusion As with the event editor it allows you edit the events of the application The difference is in the presentation of the events they are presented as a list not as a grid Some people prefer to use the event list editor Note the Event List editor is not included in The Games Factory it is only present in Multimedia Fusion How to reach the event list editor There are multiple ways of opening the event editor e In the workspace toolbar right click on a frame and choose event list editor e In the storyboard editor right click on a frame and choose event list editor e Click on the event list editor button in the navigation toolbar e Press CONTROL L Advanced Techniques AT EXAMPLE 4 13 Opponents who can t see behind them 14 Make sure OPPONENT keeps moving as though searching for character e Always A Set position at 0 0 from A 151 Set direction to Dire f Set speed to 5 16 Have the OPPONENT change dire
48. e frame editor s window The picture below shows a layer toolbar with two layers defined When you drop an object in the frame editor it is inserted in the selected layer If the selected layer is above all other layers then the object will be in front of the other objects Within a layer the order of the objects works as usual and the order option in the pop up menu affects the content of the layer e To select another layer just click on it Layers Toolbar e To add a new layer click on the button e To delete the selected layer click on the x button e To remove a layer from the view click on the Eye icon of the layer you will see all the objects of the layer disappear e To lock all the objects of a layer click on the Lock icon of the layer all the objects of the layer will become un selectable e Drag and drop functions work very well in the layer toolbar you can re arrange the orders of the layer with the mouse Please note that the layers do not affect the Windows Controls objects like the combo box object or the button object they are always displayed in front of every other object 6 The Objects The Frame editor allows you to drop objects on the frame It is time now to see the objects in details The Backdrop object The Backdrop object is used to draw backgrounds in the frame It lies behind all the other objects and does not interfere with the action In fact it does nothing but
49. e picture editor and change the images THE LIVES OBJECT The lives object is also a game oriented object it displays the current number of lives of the player The event editor contains actions to modify the number of lives of a player The lives object reflects these modifications To create a Lives object Choose the Insert object option in the frame editor pop up menu or in the Insert submenu in MMF main menu Then choose the Lives object and drop it somewhere in the frame The icon of the object should appear in the left pane of the frame editor WWY The properties This object also does not contain a lot of properties Sree A ly pc er le Player i Type Image Image s edt e Player Indicates the player whose number of lives is to be displayed From 1 to 4 e Type Use this property to set the display of the object This combo box can have three values Image the object will show the number of lives as the repetition of a graphic Click on the Edit button to open the picture editor and modify the image Text the number of lives is shown as a number printed in the selected font You can change this font by opening the Text tab of the property toolbar Finally Numbers will display the number of lives with digits You can edit the digit by clicking on the Edit button THE COUNTER OBJECT The counter object is as its name indicates a counter You can display numbers and perform calculations with it To
50. ed Speed 50 in action Acceleration 50 e Speed Maximum speed of the character i 50 Deceleration from 0 to 100 Moving at start Jump e Acceleration Time taken to go from a stopped to maximum speed from 0 to 100 Strengt i Control Button 1 e Deceleration Time taken to go from maximum speed to stopped from 0 to 100 e Moving at start Check this box and the object will move at the start of the frame e Gravity Strength of the gravity from O to 100 A strong gravity will reduce the jumps and increase the speed of falling Strength Strength of the jumps This property should be set considering the gravity factor the higher the gravity the stronger the strength of the jumps have to be e Control Indicates the combination of keys necessary to initiate a jump Can be nothing no jump fire button 1 or 2 or a combination of the left and right keys plus the up key Other properties of the active object The active object contains a lot of different properties for an exhaustive description please refer to the electronic help file gt 1 5 By Alterable Yalues o ooa Alterable Yale A 0 Alterable Strings Wee This is a string e The Alterable Values The alterable values of the active object are internal memory locations in which you can store numbers You can have up to 26 different alterable values and you can name them as you want To edit the names of the alterable val
51. ed Scrolling v the previous frame and the current one ae the display of the previous frame is slowly Gaaga replaced by the current frame and the fade O Color out transitions slowly replaces the content of m uration the current frame by a plain color Transitions 7 Preview are important for multimedia presentation Reais Style 1 Style 2 Style 3 Style 4 Style 5 where you need to smoothly go from one O Style 6 Style 7 Style 8 panel to another To insert a new fade click on the fade button in the Contents column of the storyboard O Random editor This will open the transition set up dialog box The different zones of this dialog box are the following e Module Transitions come as modules one module containing several transitions Choose the module with this combo box Transition This combo box shows the available transitions in the selected module e From to For fade in transitions indicates the origin screen it can be the Background of the previous frame or a plain Color in this case you can select it in the color selector For fade out transition indicates a color Duration Sets the speed of the transition e Preview Shows the transition in action e Parameters This section of the dialog box varies accordingly to the transition chosen It usually displays the different styles available for the transition Once a transition is defined it is displayed in the sto
52. edia Fusion everything is done with the mouse by point and click So what is an event It is the association of one or more conditions and one or more actions Conditions and actions They reflect your natural way of thinking Imagine you have created a breakout game in the frame editor and you want the ball to bounce when it collides with a brick You would think about this as When the ball collides with the brick make the ball bounce The previous line is an event The condition is When the ball collides with the brick and the action is Make the ball bounce In the event editor you would create a condition that detects the collision between the ball and the brick then in the pop up condition menus of the ball set the action to bounce the ball How to reach the event editor There are multiple ways of opening the event editor e In the workspace toolbar right click on a frame and choose event editor e In the storyboard editor right click on a frame and choose event editor e Click on the event editor button in the navigation toolbar e Press CONTROL E The display of the event editor All the events All the objects 1 RETURN ICON e Always e Mouse pointer is over as Alterable Value A of 4 0 e Alterable Value A of 43 1 e User clicks with left button on p es animation PULSE is over e X position of dad e Xposition of gt e Y position of dad lt poston i gt HEE New conditi
53. editor pop up menu or in the Insert submenu in MMF main menu Then choose the String object and drop it somewhere in the frame Loot ee The icon of the object should appear in the left pane of the frame editor abe Properties Only a few specific properties for the string object Settings cc SED aE Age aaah NUS Ss el ae ci reas ce aN i Paragraph 1 This i is the first paragraph Paragraph 2 a __ is the second SELA The string object can contains a number of paragraphs By clicking on the New button you add a new paragraph to the list Click on the text zone to edit the text of the paragraph In the event editor you will be able to display this or that paragraph To change the font used to display the object click on the Text Options tab in the property toolbar This will display the font choice and text formatting option e Font Click to choose another font a eit Ay e Style Allows you to display the text in bold or Text Options Font MS Sans Serif italic Standard i j i Style Erien e Effect Choice of underline or strike out Effect None Color E rce 0 0 0 e Color Choose the color of the font Alignment Horizontal Left e Alignment Horizontal To align on the left vertical Top center or right justify the text e Alignment Vertical To display the text in the top middle or bottom of the object s box The string object also has an option called Alternate String which can be
54. eleration 50 Moving at start direction of the object out of 8 e Try movement Click to see the movement in action e Speed Maximum speed of the object from 0 to 100 e Acceleration Acceleration factor from 0 no acceleration to 100 immediate e Deceleration Deceleration factor from O no deceleration to 100 immediate The deceleration factor indicates the time taken to go from the maximum speed to stopped when the user releases the keys THE RACE CAR MOVEMENT As its name indicates the race car movement makes the object run like a car seen from above With the keys you can turn right or left and move forward or backward in the current direction of the car Note as the movement uses the 32 possible directions it is best seen with an object in which all the 32 directions of the Stopped or Walking animations are defined e Player Number of the player who controls Movement the object from 1 to 4 Movement Movement 1 Sad p NNE Type Race Car Initial direction Choose the initial direction Player i of the object with this property Initial direction d 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 e Try movement Click to see the movement 5 Cty Movement i Spee in action Speed 50 e Speed Maximum speed of the object from Acceleration 50 0 to 100 Deceleration 50 Enable reverse e Acceleration From 0 to 100 time taken to p RREA go from stopped to maximum speed Rotation i of ang
55. ent frame Image Mode Options Insert after current frame C Import selection This dialog presents to you the image to be imported and provides several options e Transparent color The transparent color is a color that is not seen in the object one can see what is behind the object when the transparent color is used As a default the color Black is the transparent color but you can choose to pick another color from the picture just click on the Pick button and then click somewhere in the picture You can also double click on the colored square to choose a color e Box mode Please refer to the Help file for information about this option For normal importing this option should be OFF e Import selection Allows you to make a selection box around the graphics you want to import Click on the Select button and then make the box with the mouse pointer in the picture e Import as selection The image will be imported as a floating selection and will not replace the current image ik Crop The crop button reduces the size of the picture intelligently it removes the transparent areas around the image thus keep only the useful part of the image This option is very important to save memory in your application only keep the important parts of the images to avoid wasting memory and disc space Options This icon allows you to choose the action of a right click in the image You can two choices draw with background color or pic
56. he expression editor allows you to make calculation with numbers but also with strings A string is a chunk of text included in quotes For example My string is a string and will be accepted by the editor You can perfectly add two strings together for example This is my string will return in one string equal to This is my string The other operators like multiplication and division are not accepted for strings Some actions ask for a number in this case the expression editor will be initialised with a zero and some ask for strings in this case it will be initialised with an empty string If you mix numbers and strings together the expression editor will report a Mixed strings and number error and will refuse to be closed A closer look on certain functions e Pi Returns the value of the Pi number e Sin Cos Tan Return the value of the sine cosine and tangent of an angle The angle must be expressed in degrees 0 360 e Sqr Returns the Square root of a positive number e Ln Log Return the logarithm of a number e Exp Returns the exponential of a number e Left String function returns the left part of a string For example Left Multimedia 3 will return Mul e Mid String function returns a extract from the middle of a string This function asks for two parameters the first is the start position in the string the second is the number of characters to return Exa
57. he frame it will be added automatically to the debugger You can keep the debugger open and restart the application the value will be updated as the application changes You can also change the value of alterable values or strings by double clicking on them With the debugger you can monitor an object while the application is running The monitored object does not have to be displayed on screen or interacted with at all Appendix 9 Creating your standalone application The goal of Multimedia Fusion is to create applications that you can distribute around you give to friends and publish on the internet This kind of application needs to work alone on a computer without Multimedia Fusion installed this is the reason why they are called standalone applications Multimedia Fusion permits to create three kinds of standalone applications e Executable files EXE that run when you double click on them e Screen savers SCR that automatically pop up when you leave your computer unattended e Internet applications CCN that you can play on a web page with the Vitalize Plugin Note that CCN files are the ones understood by the sub application object so if you have a project in which sub applications are used you should compile in this format To choose what kind of application you want to create display the application properties by clicking on the application in the workspace toolbar and click on the Settings tab You will
58. iles iis ea application the Values tab to set up Commandiine O 000 v Enable debugger keyboard shortcuts everything dealing with the application adjust the run time environment of your internal variables the Events tab for global events and the About tab for disclaimer type information No Item Selected Select an item to see its description e The medium section of the window contains the properties themselves Each property is displayed on one line and should be self explanatory Check boxes edit zones color selectors combo boxes you may find all of them and more in the properties Try and experiment with them it can do no harm to try e The bottom of the window is the information panel it shows the name of the selected item and a description of its function 4 The Storyboard Editor The storyboard editor is the place where you edit and create the different frames screens of the application Although you can do that in the workspace toolbar it may be simpler for some people to use the storyboard editor How to open the storyboard editor e Double click on the application name in the workspace toolbar or choose the Edit option in the popup menu e Click on the Storyboard editor icon in the Navigation bar e Press the keys Control B The display of the storyboard The storyboard editor shows specific details for every frame of your application The display is organised in columns
59. iles and directories Only in MMF e SharedData object Share numbers and strings between two or more Multimedia Fusion applications running on the same computer Database object e ODBC object Access any database using the simple syntax of the ODBC object Only in MMF File objects e File object Manipulate copy delete files located on your hard disc or floppies Game objects e Hiscore object Automatically manage a hi score table for your games e Lives object Displays the number of lives of a player e Score object Displays the score of a player Graphic and animation objects e Active object Powerful all purpose object for games and serious applications e Backdrop object Let you define backdrops in your application e Quick Backdrop object Allows you to draw rectangles and ellipses in the back of your frame Like the Backdrop object contains the Obstacle property e Active picture object Loads images from disc and display them in your frame This object can resize and rotate the images e Animation object Display FLI GIF and files with this object e Draw object Draw directly on the screen using the mouse Only in MMF e Picture object Loads images from disc and display them as background e Screen capture object Capture part or the entire screen with this object Only in MMF Interface objects e Button object Display pushbuttons radio buttons and check boxes in your application with this object e Com
60. ith the different animation options for each Direction Options Frames direction It presents you with a set of controls for you to set e Lower speed Sets the speed of the animation for when the Lower speed Repeat 0 2 Miloog object is static The speed indicator can vary from 0 stopped Higher speed Back to to 100 fast ow E e Higher speed Sets the speed for when the object is moving at maximum speed For any intermediate speed a calculation is done based on the low and high speeds and the resultant speed is used e Repeat If you want your animation to be played a certain amount of times enter a number here Using 1 causes your animation will play one time 2 for two times etc e Loop Check this box if you want your animation to loop forever e Back to You may not want your animation to loop to frame 1 You may want it to loop to frame 3 for example Enter in this box the number of the frame you want e Frames tab This tab displays in icons the different Direction Options Frames frames of the selected animation and direction A click amp on the icon opens the image in the picture editor for you Frame 1 Frame 2 to modify it amp d Frame 3 Frame 4 If you click with the right mouse button on a frame it opens the following pop up menu Clone Frame zoom Rotation Select All Unselect ue Copy Paste Delete e Clone frame This optio
61. k color a click on a pixel will select its color for the left mouse button Resize This icon is used to resize the picture When you click on this icon a small menu appears in the information space under the icon e Enter the new width and height in the edit boxes e Proportional If you check this box the width or height is automatically calculated from the other component to keep the proportionality of the icture intact during the resize P e Stretch The image will be resized as well If not selected blank Proportional Il Stretch areas are added around the image e Resample Will resample the image during the process leading to Fesample a smoother resize amp Transparency This tool allows you to show or hide the transparent color and to edit it In Multimedia Fusion this tool also allows you to display and edit the alpha channel of the image If you click on this button it opens the following Transp Color Show Alpha channel box in the information zone Show e Transp Color Select this option to see the transparent color click on Edit Show to display the color e Alpha channel Select this option to go in Alpha channel mode The Show check box will display the alpha channel the display will be replaced by the alpha channel and a click on the Edit button permits to edit the picture the color palette is replaced by shades of grey and you have all the drawing tools available to dr
62. l put all the objects at the same Y coordinate Yert Center the coordinate of the main object Bottom e Space object menu Horizontally These options are available if more than 3 objects vertically are selected at the same time They equalise the distance between the objects Horizontally e Make same size submenu Vertically These options are only valid if more than two objects are selected at the same time It makes the size of the selected object equal to the size of the main object from the selection e Text submenu 49 Typeface This classic submenu is available for text objects or objects that deal with text It allows the modification of the casual options for text color font change etc e Cut Copy Paste Delete The usual edit options are present in this menu You can copy any kind of object to the clipboard and paste it anywhere as you want e Properties Displays the properties of the selected object Most of the options of the pop up menu are available in the main MMF menu and some of them are available in the Frame editor s toolbar Using the layers The Frame editor allows the use of layers Layers are useful to create multiple planes of objects or perspective objects Layers are also very useful for parallax scrolling games please read the appendix 4 about scrolling games To show the Layer toolbar select the main menu option View Toolbars Layer toolbar The tool bar appears at the right of th
63. les 32 e Deceleration From 0 to 100 time taken to Raamaa 2s go from maximum speed to stopped e Enable reverse If checked the car will be able to go backward when the user presses the bottom key of the joystick or the down arrow key on the keyboard e Moving at start If checked makes the car move when the frame begins e Number of angles Choose here the number of possible angles between 4 8 16 or 32 The more angles the finest the rotation effect e Rotating speed From 0 to 100 indicates the speed of rotation of the car when the user presses left or right keys THE PLATFORM MOVEMENT The platform movement makes the object move like a character of a platform game it can walk on the left and right jump climb on ladders and platforms and fall from one platform to another In order to work the frame must contain backdrop objects or quick backdrop and these objects must have the Obstacle Platform or Ladder property set You must also define an event in the event editor that stops the object when it collides with the background This movement works best with an object in which all the animations are defined maui e Player Choice of the player who controls Movement Movement 1 the movement from 1 to 4 T Platform e p P wee 7 e Initial direction Choose the initial direction ayer Initial direction 0 8 16 24 of the object Lo Trymovemet J gt o Try movement Click to see the movement Spe
64. lex events with multiple conditions called compound conditions Paste e Negate Negates the current condition making it detect the contrary Delete of its default behavior For example the condition Object Is Colliding with another object negated will be true if the object is NOT colliding with the other object Negations are marked by a big X before the condition e Cut Copy Paste Delete the usual edit functions You can perfectly cut and copy conditions in the clipboard get the following pop up menu ft ke ae Neel If you click with the right mouse button on the number located on the left of the events you a Edit the Ey Edit the actions Opens the action editor ie Add a new condition the action editor is a special version of the ee event list editor see later that displays ET mareen R only the actions of this event You can coe Agroupofevents add and edit the actions as you wish and Paste more important you can set the order of e the actions ordering the actions may be necessary for your application as sometimes some actions rely on the previous actions to be executed e Add a new condition As the name indicates add a new condition to the event e Hide objects without action This action will hide all the objects that do not contain any action from the display e Insert A comment Allows you to comment your code Comments
65. me version of the objects are stored in the Extensions folder located near the main Multimedia Fusion executable e The runtime version of the objects is stored in the Data Runtime folder You will notice that the size of the objects in this folder is smaller than in the Extensions folder they only contain the runtime code It is important not to mix the objects of the two folders New transitions The fade transitions that you use on frames are also stored as external files in the Transitions folder beside Multimedia Fusion main executable New movements The system of extensions exists also for movements For example the Pinball movement is an external file The new movements are files with a MVX suffix and are stored in the Extensions folder Extension movements are only available in Multimedia Fusion Developers are creating new objects new movements and new transitions regularly You can download them from the internet come often to www clickteam com to find if new objects movements or transitions are available Clickteam also publish every so often Bonus packs that contain many new files If you are fluent in C development you can create your own objects come to the Clickteam web size and download the MMFSDK the Multimedia Fusion development kit available in the download section of our site Extension objects can only be created for Multimedia Fusion The Games Factory extra objects will
66. mple Mid Multimedia 4 4 will return time e Right String function returns the right of a string for example Right Multimedia 3 will return dia e Len Returns the length of string example Len Multimedia will return 10 e Val Converts a string into a number example Val 1000 will return the number 1000 e Str The contrary of the previous function converts a number into a string Example Str 1000 returns the string 1000 e Hex Converts a number into a string containing the hexadecimal value of the number Example Hex 256 returns 100 e Bin Converts a number into a string containing the binary value of the number Example Bin 16 returns 10000 Retrieving data from objects This very important function of the expression E New expression editor opens multiple possibilities of Right click on the object programming A click on the button Retrieve data from objects opens a dialog box that gY pS mY Movement gt gt gt presents you with the objects of the application You should click with the right mouse button on one the objects to open the Animation a ee function pop up menu of the object Values gt Coordinate i Get RGB at x Coordinate of left edge Once the menu option IS chosen the Scale Angle gt x Coordinate of right edge Count oe on box closes itself and the token of the
67. n option e A dialog box opens presenting to you all the objects of the application Click with the right mouse button on the object you want to test Let s imagine we want to test the ball object called Ballgolden for collision with the brick object called Violet So we open the condition pop up menu find the collision sub menu and choose Collision with another object e Anew dialog box immediately opens asking for the object to test the collision with Double click on the brick Violet e The New condition is replaced with the condition we have just defined e Collision between and Led As you can see the objects are displayed with their icons but you can obtain the name of 1 the object by moving the mouse pointer above the icons We have defined a condition but we need now the action to complete the event Here the action we want to define is Bounce the ball e Locate the icon of the ball in the object bar and go down in the empty square below the object on the same line as our newly created collision condition e Click with the right mouse button to open a pop up menu the ball object s action menu In this menu locate the Movement submenu and in it the Bounce action i sata J Foxement k Position d Start Animation Reverse visibility l Wrap round Play Area Order F Set Speed Shoot an Object Set Maximum Speed
68. n will duplicate the current frame and place the new frame at the end of the frame list e Zoom Opens a zoom dialog box This dialog box allows you to insert a number of frames calculated by zooming in or out the Insert Resized Frames AE current picture e Final width Enter the size of the object after zoom You Original size Width 93 Height 104 can enter a size in pixels or a percentage e Final height Same for the height TEER TE e Number of frames Enter the number of frames you want the resize to be calculated on e Proportional Makes the X and Y size be proportional Number of frames when you enter a size the other is calculated Proportional automatically V Insert after e Insert after If not selected the images will be added before the current image If ticked they will be added after e Rotation Enter the number of frames for the rotation in the edit box choose Clockwise or Counterclockwise and click on OK the rotated frames will be inserted Number of frames in the turn after the image you are editing Direction of rotation e Select all Unselect Usual functions to select or O Clockwise deselect the images Counterclockwise e Cut Copy Paste Delete Clipboard functions i i that work as usual Make One Turn Rotation fx e The navigation bar This bar allows you to navigate through the frames of an animation The button adds a 44 1419 3 ill gt Play
69. object The editor may vary from object to object for example for Active objects it will open the Animation editor For the System box object it will open the edit dialog box of this object Many objects do not have an edit box when all the necessary data is available through the property toolbar e Rename Renames the object e Cut Copy Paste Delete Edit functions applicable to this object e Clone Will create a new object identical to the object selected The object will have a name different from the name of the original object e Duplicate Creates a copy of the first object The new object will be another instance of the same object e Preferences Opens the preference dialog box ahr ki Edit Rename Ctrlt s ctrl E Clone Duplicate Preferences Properties e Properties Displays the properties of the object in the property toolbar Drag amp drop cutting and pasting Drag amp drop is possible in the workspace toolbar simply click on the item you want to move and drop it to the new position You can drag amp drop whole applications frames and objects The common edit function of cutting and pasting are possible as well You can access them from the popup menu you get when clicking with the right mouse button on an item or from the main menu Frames and objects can be copied into the clipboard and then pasted wherever you want You can cut objects from one frame and paste them in
70. object selector in which you have to choose the object to create From another application As a default the box shows the objects defined in the current frame The left pane of the box displays the applications loaded in memory at the time You can open the application and open each frame and see the list of objects of each frame You can also click on the Browse button to load the object list contained in an application on disc Once the object is chosen double click on it to proceed further The frame is now displayed with a small dialog box and a flashing cross in the middle of the frame Create Object ks y2 O At actual 2 coordinates Relative to E Violet e Originating from Indicates where the origin point of the relative object is taken It can be from the hot spot or from the action point e The cross represents the position of creation of the new object The X and Y co ordinates are displayed in the box You can move the cross on the frame with the mouse pointer This box contains two modes of functioning absolute position and relative position Absolute position the object will be created at the given co ordinates Relative position the object will be created at a certain distance from another object e To go into relative positioning simply click on the object in the frame or click on Relative to and select the object to use A relative position is represented by a link between
71. ode 23Kb funky11 43 Kb Options gas03 104 Kb glass 76 32 Kb Pteload gongi 100 Kb Load on call gong08 211 Kb grenade 43Kb Play from disk gun03 25 Kb The purpose of this box is to show and edit all the elements of data included in the application It is a little like opening the hatch and seeing the inners of your application These data can be sounds music and binary data The previous picture presents the sounds panel All the samples used in the application are listed in the box You can listen to them with the Play button The Replace button allows you to choose another sound and replace an existing sound by the new one This is a very powerful option as all the frames using this sound will use the new sound you do not need to edit the events to replace the sample Extract allows you to save the sound on disc to re use it later if you are given a game with cool sounds you can extract the sounds and use them in our own game copyright allowing of course Some options are available for each sound e Preload This is the default option the sound is loaded in memory when the frame starts Pros fast to play Cons if you have a lot of samples in your frame loading the frame may take a little time e Load on call The sound is only loaded when it needs to be played Pros faster loading time for the frame Cons may induce a little delay just before playing the sound e Play from disk The sounds are not loaded
72. on 1 The information zone gives information about what object is selected and events are displayed 2 The object bar You will find in this bar all the objects you have dropped in the frame editor plus a number of system objects available for any application only visible in the event editor 3 The conditions are displayed in this area One line per event One event can contain more than one condition thus creating a compound condition 4 The action grid Each action is represented by a checkmark under the object it modifies and to the right of the condition of the event You can have an object perform multiple actions for an individual event also 5 If you move your mouse in front of a defined action and pause the action is displayed in a pop up window Move the mouse to make the window disappear The object bar Web O10 TAa Ad aR The object bar displays the objects of the application The objects dropped in the frame in the frame editor but also new objects the system objects that you will only find in the event editor From left to right lets see the system objects ee The special object This object contains all the system conditions and actions You can modify global values perform comparisons generate random numbers and mathematical functions q The speaker object It contains actions to play sounds and music and to test if the sounds are played at a certain moment of time Ep The storyboard c
73. on related to the first object by the second object e Delete any action in column As its name indicates this action will remove all the actions in the column Very handy for example to destroy all the sound actions and make game silent in a click e Open behavior Please refer to appendix 1 for more information on behaviors e Hide object with qualifier The option is only available if you click on a qualifier Will hide all the objects containing this qualifier If you click with the left mouse button on one object it filters the events only the events containing this object will be displayed thus reducing dramatically the number of lines displayed Clicking with the left mouse button a second time on the object being filter will redisplay all the objects How to add a new event It is very simple to add a new event At first the event editor is empty so the display should look more like this All the events All the objects WEE Oo CTA om 1 New condition To define a new event follow the simple procedure E New Condition mfx Right click on the object to test F EE E Movement Oo Q Overlapping She Backdrop Position Direction Overlapping a backdrop Pick or count Visibility F Animation an F lterable Values e Click on the New condition line The last line of conditions will always contain the New conditio
74. ons of the event if not it continues the search Once the actions are executed it increments the loops counter and repeats the actions the actions are called at high speed the exact number of times you entered e You can have more than one On loop conditions in the program for the same loop e You can retrieve the number of the loop in an expression a Get loop count function exists in the special object functions menu e You can also create a loop within a loop creating a nested loop But be careful about the processing time of such nested loops as they it can be very long Appendix 4 Creating a scrolling game Scrolling games are fun to play and it is very easy to create a scrolling game in Multimedia Fusion Here are the different steps to follow Simple scrolling game e Change the size of your application window in the application properties to a reasonable size like 640x480 or 320x200 for fast scrolling e Set the size of your frame larger than the window of the application For example if your application window is 320x200 you can set the size of the frame to 960x200 and you will enough space to create a horizontal scrolling three times the size of the window e The scrolling starts at X position zero the far left edge of the frame position your characters scores number of lives in the top left of your frame e In the event editor create an Always condition and enter the next action open the storyboar
75. ontrol object Contains all the necessary to control the flow of the program going from one frame to another etc The timer object Contains conditions to test for certain duration gj The create object Allows you to create new objects in your application oont JOO i The mouse and keyboard object Allows you test for a key depressed the position of the mouse and eventual clicks on the frame i The player 1 object Contains actions to change the score and number of lives of the player 1 Note that if more than one player is defined you will find in the event editor icons for player 2 player 3 or 4 If you click with the right mouse button on one of the objects it pide opens the following pop up menu Insert hidden object Insert object Folder e Hide Hides the object from the display This option becomes Replace by another object handy if you have many objects displayed in the object bar Peter ac Ou Eo You can choose to hide them to limit the number of objects Open behavior displayed Hide objects with qualifier e Insert hidden object The counterpart of the previous option allows you to pick one object in the hidden object list and to redisplay it e Insert object folder Creates a folder in which you can drag amp drop other objects This folder can be closed thus saving a lot of space in the display e Replace by another object Will replace all the actions and conditi
76. open the New object dialog box The dialog box is organised in two panels The left panel shows the different categories of objects As you can see a lot of categories are available Click on the chosen category to see the objects displayed in the right pane The From file button opens a file selector for you to choose an object in another application The Refresh button updates the list of objects from the disc you might have copied a new extension object in your extension folder click on Refresh to display it in the list To create the object just double click on it or select the object and click on the OK button Once selected the dialog box will vanish and you only need to click somewhere on the frame to drop the object PaF MMFZ Screenvithe ScreenHighsc SugarHorizontal egoo ABeHT x Getting an object from a library Multimedia Fusion comes with a large set of pre made objects which are available in different libraries To display the content of the libraries you need to open the Library window if is not already done choose the option View Toolbars Library window in the main application menu and a new window will popup in the bottom of your screen The library window is divided in two zones the left panel shows the current directory containing the libraries In our example we have four different directories Double click on a directory to open it MMF displays in the right panel the name of all
77. orm initialisations setting counter strings ect in the events that start by Start of frame e End of frame This condition is the last to be true when the frame ends End of application This condition is only true if the user quits the application It is executed after the End of frame condition Conditions in the mouse pointer and keyboard object The conditions in this object allow you to test the keyboard and mouse e Upon pressing a key This condition asks you to press the key to test It is true once only when you have pressed the key e Repeat while key is depressed This condition is similar to the previous one but it will be true as long as you keep pressing the key e Upon pressing any key This condition will be true if the user presses any key on the keyboard Useful for menus or text readers e Checks for mouse pointer in a zone Asks you to define a zone on the frame During runtime this condition is true when the mouse lies within the defined zone e Checks for mouse pointer over an object This condition is true if the mouse pointer lies over the given object e Checks for mouse clicked This condition is true if the mouse is clicked The condition can be set for left middle or right buttons and single or double clicks Conditions in the timer object e Every This condition asks for a period of time example 1 second During runtime it will be true every second in our example Useful for flashing object
78. ortant to position the action point properly before doing a Shoot action To position the action point click on the View action point icon in the animation editor 6 3 The properties of the Active Object The active object contains a lot of properties The most interesting ones are the movement properties Active objects are animated but they can also move on the screen and create some action in your game To add a movement to an object select the object in the frame editor to display its properties then click on the Movement tab in the property toolbar A amp R ap Movement Movement Movement 1 Type Static Initial direction 24 The first property named Movement allows you to define more than one movement for the object For example the first movement could be a path movement and the second a bouncing ball This property is reserved for advanced users The Type property allows you to choose the type of movement for your object Multimedia Fusion comes with eight different movements for you to choose from Let s see them in details THE STATIC MOVEMENT This is the simplest movement of all the object does not move This is the default movement when you create a new object in the frame editor Even if the object does not move it takes a part in all the collisions of the application you can use the static movement for traps or triggers in a game and all the things that do not need to move
79. our description of the interface by concentrating on the workspace toolbar The workspace toolbar is the area where you can see the entire structure of your application It displays i Workspace Toolbar e The application SB jackforest B pr sentation The frames we coun e The objects S levelt 1 4 max ts n1_coll coll_max plateforme What are these items sis PONCE wwe ronce 3 e The application is the program you are creating hae and represents the file on the hard disc Note imace 3 Multimedia Fusion applications are saved with the chee suffix MFA You edit the content of the application ene with the storyboard editor In the previous picture the application name is Zeb Lives item_limace1 e The frames are the different screens of your application If your application is a game then a frame might corresponds to a level of the game A game with three frames could contain as first frame the title page as second page the game itself and as third page a high score table You edit the content of the frame in the frame editor In the previous picture the frames are named Version screen Zeb title screen and Funky Jungle 1 1 e The objects The objects are the items contained in a frame For a game objects can be a ball the main player character a trap etc For multimedia presentations an object can be a string of text a text edit zone a button a list box etc Of c
80. ourse any type of application can use any type of object All the objects can be edited in the frame editor In the above picture the objects are named Zeb Quick backdrop 2 Real Zeb etc As you can see the structure of the application is displayed using a parent child relationship in the workspace toolbar le Application Frame Objects An application may have any multiple frames with each frame having multiple object Workspace toolbar menu options By clicking with the right mouse button on the items contained in the workspace toolbar you can access different parts of MMF and perform some editing functions Right clicking on the application icon opens the following menu e Edit Opens the storyboard editor to edit the layout of the frames of the application EE Edit Ctrl B e Rename Renames the application Rename e New frame Inserts a new blank frame in the list of frames New Frame e Paste frame If a frame is contained in the clipboard MB Paste Frame reel pastes the frame in the list of frames j o Data Elements e Data elements Opens the Data Elements editor For more information on this powerful option please refer to appendix la Save Ctrl s 5 Save s e Save Saves the application on disc using the current Close Nang Preferences e Save As Saves the application on disc with a new name Properties e Close Closes the application e Preferences Opens the preferences dialog box
81. r e Play and loop music Same as above but asks for a number of time to play the music a Storyboard object actions The actions of the storyboard object control the flow of the application e Next frame Quits the current frame and loads and plays the next one in the storyboard list e Previous frame Quits the current frame and loads and plays the previous frame in the storyboard list e Jump to frame Asks for the frame to jump to You can also do a calculation to get the number of the frame e Restart the current frame As the name indicates restarts the current frame all the objects movements values are reset to their original values e Restart the application Restarts the application from frame 1 as if it were run for the first time e End the application Immediately quits the application Doge oe e Hide Windows mouse pointer Hides the pointer e Show Windows mouse pointer Shows the pointer if it was hidden Mouse pointer and keyboard object actions Timer object actions e Set timer Changes the timer of the frame to a new value wi Create object actions This object only contains one action but it is an important one Create object Ei Create Object From a loaded application This action allows you to create new TES o amp Advanced Technique F z Application 2 Violet object during runtime When you choose peels this option you are first presented with ge Oist an
82. r Lock e Insert object Inserts a new object opens the new object dialog Rename e Lock Locks the object make it un selectable This option is very Clone Object useful if you have a large number of objects one above the other Create Locking objects that you do not want to select can save time and effort Duplicate while using the Frame Editor To unlock previously locked objects you Order g need to choose the Unlock all option from the main menu in the Align in Frame Arrange sub menu To unlock a single object you can press SHIFT Sa diii a CTRL while clicking on it eae te Make Same Size d e Rename Renames the object na e Clone object Creates new objects using the current object asa ag ET ei d Cu rH template Warning the created objects are different from the original D copy Ae objects Use the duplicate option to create multiple copies of the same Paste Ctrl y object When you select this option a small dialog is opened allowing Delete Suppr you to create more than one object in the form of an array Bonens e Create submenu This option allows you to create different types of objects Backdrop Object from the selected object For example you can create a Active Object backdrop object from an active object an active object from a backdrop object an active object from a string object Quick Backdrop Object e Duplicate Creates multiple instances of the same object The created objects are the same
83. r values See later e Step by step Perform only one step of animation allowing you to see what exactly is happening in the application e Play Resume to normal speed e Information zone This zone indicates permanently the number of objects contained in the application and the memory size necessary to make it run e button Opens the debugger window e Close Closes the debugger but keep the application running If you open the debugger by clicking on the button you obtain the following window al il i 95 Objects 10 Mb H E Global strings A a ZEB a 98 Y 487 a Width 66 Height 35 a f Movement E Animation A Alterable values l Alterable strings E Flags E S HAND GUNNER s i 208 Y 424 Fl As you can see this window displays information Information about what is going on within your application The display is centred on the notion of objects The initial object displayed is the system object that contains information about the frame rate the number of the frame and the global values and strings All the information is displayed as a tree you can open the different sections with the mouse You can add objects of the application to the display First you need to go in Pause mode by clicking on the Pause button Then you have two options e Click on the Add object button in the bottom right of the window and choose the object in the list e Directly click on the object in t
84. rer display e Enable visual themes With this option your application will use the Visual Theme defined by the user in its Windows Screen properties Without this option your application will be displayed using the classic Windows style e Players Initial score If you want the scores of the player to be different from zero when the application starts e Players Initial of lives Enter the number of lives at the beginning of your game e Players Default controls Click on the Edit button to modify the default controls of the player The initial setting is all four players on the keyboard e Vitalize Preview Choose a picture to display while the Vitalize Plugin is loading your application Appendix 8 The debugger When your application gets complex with a lot of objects and a lot of events sometimes it does not work as you want due to errors in the logic applied Multimedia Fusion contains a tool to help you find the problems of your application the debugger The debugger is automatically opened when you launch the application It is a small bar in the top left corner of your screen This little bar does not interact with your application It takes no processing time and just sits there until you touch it From the left to the right e Rewind Restarts the current frame e Stop Quits the application and comes back to Multimedia Fusion editor e Pause Goes into pause mode in this mode you can add objects and see thei
85. rs You are allowed to sell the stand alone applications and screen savers you create with the SOFTWARE provided that you agree with the Runtime Distribution Agreement The Runtime Distribution Agreement is available in the online help on the CD ROM and on the Clickteam Web site http www clickteam com 4 COPYRIGHT All title and copyrights in and to the SOFTWARE including but not limited to any images texts and sounds incorporated into the SOFTWARE are owned by Clickteam or its suppliers 5 REDISTRIBUTION You are NOT allowed to redistribute the SOFTWARE 6 GOVERNING LAW If you acquired this product in France this agreement is governed by the French laws If you acquired this product outside France then local law may apply 7 DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THE SOFTWARE AND THE ACCOMPANYING FILES ARE PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW CLICKTEAM DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF PERFORMANCE MERCHANTABILITY FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW IN NO EVENT SHALL CLICKTEAM BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT INDIRECT CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE EVEN IF CLICKT
86. ryboard editor as a new line before or Title scoring Password gt IB 640 by 480 after the frame 5 The Frame Editor The frame editor is where you edit the content of the frames of your application It allows you to drop the different objects in the frame and set their respective positions size etc The frame editor edits one frame at a time Application 1 Frame 1 Tree 10 9 The left panel of the window shows as list of the objects contained in the frame By right clicking on the left panel you can choose to display the objects as small or big icons and to sort them by size or by name The main panel shows the frame itself The grey areas represent the area outside the frame and can be thought of as active memory It is possible to position object in the grey are but they won t appear in runtime as they are outside of the view area You can use the outside as a docking space to store the objects you may need during your application object that will move into the view area at runtime or for object that may be needed but not seen at runtime Creating a new object You can create a new object from scratch Todo REPE so you have two options e Right click on the frame and choose the Insert object option e Open the main menu and choose the option Plays video files AVI format Insert New object e Double click on an empty zone in the frame It will
87. s automatic incrementation of a score etc e Is the timer equal to a certain value This condition is true when the timer reaches the given time The timer is initialised to zero at the start of the frame wi Conditions of the create object e Pick a random object This powerful condition will select one object in the middle of all the objects e Pick an object at random in a zone This condition is like the previous one but limited to the object inside a given zone on the frame e Pick all objects in a zone Will select all the objects present in a zone on the frame e Pick all objects on a line Will ask you to enter the co ordinates of two points This condition will draw a hidden line between the two points and select the objects that cross this line Note for the Pick object conditions the actions will only apply to the objects selected by the condition a Conditions of the player object e Read joystick state This condition allow you to test the state of the joystick know if the user has pressed up down left or right along with the fire buttons e Repeat while joystick is pressed This condition will be true as long as the player presses the wanted key on the joystick G Conditions of the active object The active object is very versatile and it contains a lot of conditions Here are the main ones e Collisions with another object Important condition it is true immediately after the object has been colliding with
88. sit there To create a Backdrop object Choose the Insert object option in the frame editor pop up menu or in the Insert submenu in MMF main menu Then choose the Backdrop object and drop it somewhere in the frame The icon of the object should appear Of course you can draw what you want in the object To open the Multimedia Fusion Picture editor right click on the backdrop object and choose the Edit option 6 1 The Picture Editor The picture editor is where you edit the pictures of the backdrop objects and any other object with pictures E Tree 10 204 204 204 The Picture editor looks a lot like any other drawing program and it does function like them So we will only concentrate on some important icons If you want the full detail of the icons refer to the Help file in Multimedia Fusion ta Import image This icon opens a file selector for you to choose an image to import Multimedia Fusion supports many kind of images Targa Png Jpeg Gif Bmp Avi and Pcx Once the image selected you are presented with the importation dialog box in which you can enter further parameters ES Import Options khel Td i gt isl iii Options Animation Mode Options Transparent Color From Frame RGE 0 0 0 Pies To Frame Box mode Import As Animation Replace curent animation Inzert before curr
89. t in Multimedia Fusion Re opening the workspace toolbar If by mistake you close the workspace toolbar you can re open it by choosing the main menu option View Toolbars Workspace 3 The Property Toolbar The property toolbar is an essential part of Multimedia Fusion it provides the interface to choose all the necessary options for the applications frames and objects Using the property toolbar is easy because everything is automatic The property toolbar adapts to display the properties of the selected object Select the application in the workspace toolbar and the application properties will be displayed Select a frame in the storyboard editor and the frame properties will be displayed Select an object in the frame editor and the object properties will be displayed The picture below presents a page of the properties of an application If is divided in three zones e The top of the display presents a set Properties zeh x of tabs each representing a different Ba Re BQ chapter of properties For example for Settings applications you have the Settings Graphicmode 256 colors O tab which contains different settings like Build ll Build Type Stand alone Application the number of colors the installer settings eae a u etc the Window tab which contains Install Settings APSA ARCA ara ects yet ee ine aan os ei window the Runtime options to J CompressSounds Include external f
90. the available libraries in the folder Now you just have to click on one of the library to open it the content of the right panel is replaced by the content of the library with all the objects A click on the previous icon will re display the list of libraries A double click on one object will display the object in real size in a small window Just click anywhere to erase it To get the library object in your application click on it and drop it in the frame Creating your own libraries and displaying them You can of course create your own libraries just create the objects you want in the first frame of a new application and save the application in the Lib Objects folder in the Multimedia Fusion folder in C Program Files The new library will appear in the Local library section You can also create a new folder with your new libraries and display it in the window right click somewhere in the left panel and choose the New option In the directory selector choose the folder you want to display Selecting the objects To select an object in the frame editor just click on it with the left mouse button A selection border will appear around the object A number is also displayed in the top left corner this number is the number of the object in the list of objects of the frame editor This can be important when you are modifying the priorities of the objects If you click a second time on the same object
91. the objects With their icon will print the icon maybe difficult to read once printed Final and best option with their icon and name e Number of columns Allows you to select the number of columns of events in one page Page Setup Page Ratio 100 How to display the objects With their name With their icon With their icon and name Number of Columns 6 Appendix 1 Global events and behaviors In this manual we have detailed the events associated with a frame They are the main events But you can if you want define other events that might be useful to your application Global Events If you create an application with multiple frames with the same interface like a presentation with a previous next button you might not want to repeat the same list of events in every frame not only inserting them would be tedious but if you decide to modify the way of working you would have to port the changes in all the frames This is why Multimedia Fusion contains the possibility of creating global events Global events are a list of events that is global to the application it will be executed in all the frames of the application In our presentation example you would put in the global event the handling of the next previous buttons To open the global events display the properties of the application by clicking on the name of the application in the workspace toolbar and click on the Events tab
92. this could create a lot of event lines A qualifier is a symbol that you associate with an object In our example you would associate the qualifier Traps to every one of the traps in your game Once in the event editor you would see a new icon the Traps qualifier You could then replace all the collision lines by one line the detection of the collision between the player and the qualifier called Traps Qualifier can be used exactly as the object they replace they can have conditions actions and functions Actually there is no difference between an object and the qualifier that represents it To add a qualifier to an object you first need to display its properties in the property toolbar Just click on the object in the frame editor Then choose the Events tab the same than the one with the behaviors Ba 2 8 e Events Click on the edit button to open the Qualifier dialog box This box presents the qualifiers already CEO TE selected for the object A click on the Add Please choose a qualifier button allows you to choose a qualifier Aa amp z ip C amongst the available list of qualifiers aie Neutral A EDE a Conclusion qualifiers can save you a lot of Gane Toa Bulets X time developing the application reduce the s amount of code and make your list of events easier to read Appendix 3 Fast loops Many times in your program of events you need to repeat the same
93. to make a comparison between two values numerical or text e Limit conditions Run this event once If you insert this condition in an event the event will only be run once in the duration of the frame e Limit conditions Only one action when event loops If the event is true it will be true only once and remain false until the condition making it true is false again Like a one shot event executed only one cycle then ignored until the conditions are false then true again e Limit conditions Repeat This condition will make the event repeat a certain amount of times You are asked to enter a number when this condition is selected e Group of events Check for activation This condition will be true if the selected group of event is activated or if negated see above if the group is not active e Group of event On start of group This condition will be true only if it used within a group and if this group has just been activated It will be true only one time and after will become false until the group is deactivated and reactivated again e On Loop Allows you to create fast loops fast loops are a very powerful way of executing jobs very fast More info in appendix 3 Conditions in the storyboard object a The conditions of the storyboard object test the flow of the application e Start of frame This condition is only true once at the very beginning of the frame It is executed before all the other conditions You should perf
94. ues and set their content for when the frame starts click on the Values tab in the property toolbar Click on the New button to add a value click on the name of the value to edit it and click on the number to change it e The Alterable Strings Alterable strings are identical to the alterable values but they contain strings of text You can have up to 10 different alterable strings in an active object They are accessible with the same Values tab in the property toolbar 423 THE SCORE OBJECT The score object is a game oriented object it displays the current score of a player The event editor contains actions to modify the score of a player The score object reflects these modifications To create a Score object Choose the Insert object option in the frame editor pop up menu or in the Insert submenu in MMF main menu Then choose the Score object and drop it somewhere in the frame The icon of the object should appear in the left pane of the frame editor The properties The score object does not contain many properties a ee ee Player i Type Text Images ee e Player Indicates which player the object is displaying the score from 1 to 4 e Type Use this property to set the display of the object It can be Text in this case the object will be displayed using a font you can change this font in the Text tab of the property toolbar It can also be Numbers click on the Edit button to open th
95. ves in a direction depending on the user input or the movement itself Multimedia Fusion selects the appropriate animation and displays it as the object moves It is automatic so you do not have to care about it thus saving edit time This feature makes the active object suited for many uses from a bouncing ball in a breakout game to a walking and jumping character in a platform game Active objects can also be used as clickable buttons in a multimedia presentation Opacity M S Mf 4 17219 gt vif a Chew Animations Direction Options Frames k Walking Running Appearing Disappearing Frame 1 Frame 2 Bouncing Shooting Jumping Falling A Clinhina Frame 3 Frame 4 The previous picture shows the animation editor at work As you can see it is based on the picture editor so please refer to this part of the documentation for more information on how to use the drawing tools We will concentrate on the new features of the animation editor Looking at the bottom of the window from left to right e The animation selector Double click on an animation to open it The different directions and frames will be displayed in the window To add a user animation right click in the animation selector and choose new You can cut copy and paste the animation as any other object in Multimedia Fusion e The direction selector All the directions are displayed ther
96. wn timer with this object Video objects e AVI object Display video files in the Microsoft format AVI e DirectShow object Play sounds and video files or DVD using this powerful object Only in MMF e Quicktime object Play and manage the popular Quicktime files Other objects e ActiveX object Use and drive ActiveX controls with this object Only in MMF e Layer object Manage the display priority between the different objects of your application 7 The Event Editor Shown as an array the event editor is a grid in which you are going to display create and modify all the events that will bring your frame to life In the frame editor you can drop objects and set up the display of your application But if you try to run an application immediately after finishing your work in the frame editor you will notice that very little happens The moving objects move and finish by getting out of the display but nothing reacts to the mouse and the application just stays there doing nothing The event editor is the place where you will design and create the logic behind your application You will be able to detect the different states of the application collisions timer position of the mouse etc and take actions to react What is an event The event editor is based on events Events are what make Multimedia Fusion so unique they are a simple yet powerful way of programming Do not be afraid there is no programming language in Multim
97. yle Poirier Geoff amp June Jamie McLaughlin Joseph Wojciechowski Josh Dowen Josh Whelchel Lior Halphon Marcus Henrikson Mattis Lorentzon Melli Georgiou Olivier Behr Paul Boland Peter Heinze Philippe Cizaire Rando Wiltschek Raymond Emonnot Rich Whilding Robbie Shields Ryan Sadwick Sarah Greenland Scott Watson Sean Poling Welcome to Multimedia Fusion 2 and The Games Factory 2 This manual has been written for both Multimedia Fusion 2 and The Games Factory 2 these products share a number of common features Within the manual we will be identifying both products as Multimedia Fusion or its abreviation of MMF Any features specified will apply to both products unless otherwise indicated This manual also applies to the MMF2 Developer version MMF2 Developer adds many features and capabilities while providing a smooth transition from MMF2 Standard and The Games Factory This manual will review in details the most important parts of the product e The interface the workspace toolbar the property explorer e The editors the storyboard editor the frame editor the picture and animation editors e The objects active string counter etc objects e The event editor and the event programming e And finally in appendixes various considerations about Multimedia Fusion The Chocobreak tutorial Before reading this manual if you are new to Multimedia Fusion we strongly suggest that you go through the Chocobreak tutorial This

USER'S MANUAL

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents