New Flowlab Release: Honeydew 🍈

Hey @here @Epic Notification Bell Club - I just deployed a new engine update!

New Flowlab Release: HONEYDEW

This release is focused on improving the Sound behavior, making collision shapes more flexible, and improving messaging.

:loud_sound: Sound Updates

Changes

  • Sound will now continue to play when the sound is paused, if the object is not
  • Sound will continue to play between levels if the object is set to “keep between levels”
  • play output now outputs when the audio playback starts, not when the sound is triggered
  • new settings panel

New Settings

  • stop playing on despawn controls whether the sound stops when the object is destroyed, useful for explosions/etc
  • play mode controls whether the sound in streamed (music mode) or loaded completely (sound effect mode)
  • preload available in sound effect mode, preloads the sound on game start so it plays back instantly the first time
  • pan (this is also an extended input) - left/right stereo, available in sound effect mode only
  • overlap enables sounds to overlap instead of restarting on playback
  • extended options shows extra inputs & outputs
  • start position selects the starting point of the playback (in seconds)

New Inputs

  • pause pauses the sound (play will resume it)
  • url allows you to select an mp3 url
  • pan sets the stereo value (-100 to +100), sound effect mode only
  • pos sets the starting position

:diamond_shape_with_a_dot_inside: Collision Shape Updates

Now when selecting a physics collision shape, you get a popup where you can tweak the collisions.

  • Circle: you can scale the circle to adjust it
  • Rectangle: You can scale the x & y axis of the rectangle
  • Capsule: You can scale the x & y axis of the rectangle
  • Polygon: You can deselect the “auto” checkbox, which will allow individual vertices to be modified, and the shape can be dragged as well. The collision system operates on convex polygons, so that’s one restriction

:dart: Object Targeting Updates

In this version, these behaviors now target objects by name instead of id:

  • Collision
  • Proximity
  • Extract
  • Message

The goal is to resolve the following issues:

  • Reusing objects with these behaviors between levels is difficult (or impossible)
  • Copy / Paste logic between games/levels is extra painful since behavior settings must be changed
  • Opening the settings for these behaviors in levels where the objects don’t exist causes the settings to be los

The “new” approach is to target by name, so that individual objects can be referenced even if they don’t exist.

This change should be backwards compatible, and should fall back to using the old ids in previous engine versions.

Please check it out, and let me know what you think about this behavior, and if you encounter any issues.

:love_letter: Typed Messages

This should be fairly self-explanitory, but the general idea is now you have to create a message before using it, similar to how Globals and Object Properties work. Messages can now send:

  • Numbers
  • Text
  • Text Lists
  • Number Lists

:sparkles: New Sprite Assets (Indie Only)

A bunch of new great-looking & super-flexible sprites added by our own @PixelPizza!

Misc. Fixes

  • Prevent duplicated links when copying behaviors
  • Various behavior settings panel layout fixes

Please let me know if you encounter any issues, thanks!

18 Likes

THANK YOU SO MUCH GRAZER THIS IS THE UPDATE I’VE BEEN MOST GRATEFUL FOR, EVER!!!

Also, how do we delete message names now?

3 Likes

You’re welcome!

If a message is not used anywhere it will be autodeleted :+1:

4 Likes

Wow! The pan sound effect would be so cool to make stuff sound like they are in different spots! This would make for a lot of cool, immersive areas! I’m definitely gonna use this in my game!
(Thanks)

2 Likes

oh my gosh! THANK You so much grazer!!!

1 Like

I have a feeling, inside my bones.
It goes electric when grazer made this update!

also, honeydew is a delicious fruit

could you also make some new sprites for us free users?

It’s so people actually want to get indie. (Well, not fully, but it adds on).

1 Like

but I’m broke, and I’m using a school computer

cant wait to try this update out

Okay guys this is getting off-topic but I know how to add spritesheets and stuff to Flowlab games, and it’s pretty simple.

It works for indie and free I’m pretty sure.\

1 Like

we mean the new sprites that are exclusive to Flowlab Indie Edition, not on the web anywhere.

1 Like

Wait, we have those?

EDIT: My bad didn’t read the ending of the post (the first one at the top of the topic)

1 Like

apparently you guys do. I wish I had indie, but I don’t have much money
and I am not selling my Pokemon cards

now what we need is a glitching font

VVhy? VVhat do y()v mean?

1 Like

actually, never mind… I just remembered recryptech has a bundle for that stuff

Okay.

1 Like

This audio stuff is great and I’m glad the Message system can now send non-floats! The hitbox system looks incredible, is there any plan for hitboxes that can change mid-game, like a hitbox coordinate changer block? I can’t wait to see what crazy sound design people get in to now, thank you for being so dedicated to your engine and community grazer!

5 Likes