Buildbox 3 Alpha3: Friday Fun With Nodes

Discussion in 'Buildbox 3.0' started by NikRudenko, Jul 13, 2018.

  1. NikRudenko

    NikRudenko Administrator Staff Member

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    Hello guys. You know what I love to do at Fridays night (right after i'm finished with BB3 Beta fixes :))?
    I love do new game designs and play with different concepts. I call it Concept Fridays Nights :).

    So tonight I want to show you some interesting concept we have in BB3 (my favorite so far).
    It is called Pinned Attributes.

    When you work on a game you usually have levels (or level sections) those levels having assets. Assets can be cube that spin or enemy that chase or maybe some flower that grow. And by placing assets together you building some crazy levels. Like in our game Line Zen we have few Assets that we can combine with each other and create those crazy mind blowing rooms.

    In our Devblog post dev-blog-3 I already mention that concept. Where you can design your own asset expose some parameters and start tweaking them for each level individually.

    Enough talking lets go straight to business. We are creating Asset that can be scaled to any size after character reached some distance. Super simple.

    [​IMG]
    We have Wake Up node that will send awake signal as soon as distance between character and asset will reach 0 (by default). Then we have Scale Animation will start scaling from current Scale of asset towards "End Scale" (2,2,2 by default) value with nice smooth transition.

    [​IMG]

    As you can see as soon as Character reached that Cube is starts growing until it reached "End Scale value".
    But what if I want some cubes grow bigger or some cubes get smaller on my levels. I don't want to create asset for every single case. I want to be flexible. That is why we need Pinned Attributes.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Just hover your mouse cursor over attributes on nodes and click on Pin Icon. This attributes will be available for every single Asset Instance (aka Entity) on your level and you can override them.

    [​IMG]
    Now if you click on any cubes on your level you can find extra two attributes that you can override (those are coming from those nodes we did earlier).

    And now your imagination can run wild!
    [​IMG]

    Here is bbdoc file for you to mess around.

    Cheers
     
  2. jmiller8031

    jmiller8031 Avid Boxer

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    Wow, so you figured out a way to assign specific variables to instances of an object. What can be pinned, what can't? Can you add attributes through scripting? This is pretty powerful.
     
  3. NikRudenko

    NikRudenko Administrator Staff Member

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    any attribute on Yellow Nodes (aka Scripted Nodes ) can be pinned and overridden during level design process. And yes you can create those attributes on your own. I'll cover that part later
     
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  4. and249

    and249 Avid Boxer

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    Cool!!! I should've bought MC2. :confused:
     
  5. jmiller8031

    jmiller8031 Avid Boxer

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    Awesome!
     
  6. Rebel Studios

    Rebel Studios Avid Boxer

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    Is it gonna be tough for us who DO NOT know coding or scripting? :/
     
  7. NikRudenko

    NikRudenko Administrator Staff Member

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    Absolutely not. Buildbox 3 Beta event will show you how easy it will be and how awesome. I wish this kinda tool will be available back when I started. I will be never coding since then :)
     
  8. and249

    and249 Avid Boxer

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    @NikRudenko, the node based scripting looks like the Blueprint of UE4. But I think this will be much easy!!!
     
  9. Rebel Studios

    Rebel Studios Avid Boxer

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    Really looking forward to this! However will the shadow issue on the previewer of our Macbook Pro be resolved in the beta version?
     
  10. NikRudenko

    NikRudenko Administrator Staff Member

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    Yes. in fact many game engines trying to implement node based scripting this days. But they are all doing it wrong. It is just too low level and because of that you need to have 10-20 nodes or even more to do a decent setup. At that ratio is better just writing a code (will be shorter and easier to understand).
    Our approach is different. We trying to go more high level abstraction and give you ability to edit anything you want. Like this template based approach we have in BB2 but for everything. With our node style it is easier to see the mind flow and easy to debug and easy to experiment. Because experimenting is a key in game development.

    Yes. We are woking on that issue right now. And trying to get it fix for Beta release.
     
    Sean Buildbox and Rebel Studios like this.
  11. jmiller8031

    jmiller8031 Avid Boxer

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    I think this is exactly what is missing in game development. I've used all those other solutions for years and always felt that the "easier" node implementation in other products were actually more difficult and time consuming than just typing out a script. Your implementation makes a lot of sense. Scripting, but with a visual connection to keep track of the logic flow for easier editing and variable manipulation. Add the ability to share with people not wanting to script and you got a winner.
     
  12. Rebel Studios

    Rebel Studios Avid Boxer

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    AWESOME!!! A HUGE thank you for all your efforts bro :)
     
  13. wayne_martell

    wayne_martell Avid Boxer

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    Now we're talking the wait is over !!!
     
  14. Wapps1

    Wapps1 Avid Boxer

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    Hey Nik, looks nice! I have already played around with alpha 3, i love how easy everything is. I also learned c# in the past weeks. At the moment i‘ll get pretty good forward with writing code, but without visual studio and tooltip autocomplete and that stuff, i would be lost as a beginner.

    Are you planning to add stuff like this to the BB3 codeeditor?

    Or will there be a option later to use different IDE?
     
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  15. MattWills

    MattWills Avid Boxer

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    @Wapps1 You should be able to use any IDE and then copy and paste the script into the custom node. That way you get the auto complete etc. Would be easier to be integrated at some point though.
     
  16. MattWills

    MattWills Avid Boxer

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    @NikRudenko Love the node system BB3 has implemented you are a genius. I have tried other visual scripting tools and this outstrips them all for me for ease of use whilst also remaining powerful and unlimited. Just playing with nodes has allowed me to create concepts in half an hour that would have taken way longer before.
     
  17. Wapps1

    Wapps1 Avid Boxer

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    I think you need the BB liabary to work with a different IDE.
    But maybe @NikRudenko can bring some light, how the best workflow for BB3 and script would be
     
    Christoph likes this.
  18. MattWills

    MattWills Avid Boxer

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    The syntax of the JavaScript code will be the same.
     
  19. and249

    and249 Avid Boxer

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    What type of games can we create with BB3?
     
  20. MattWills

    MattWills Avid Boxer

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    Pretty much anything you can think of will be possible. The software will be unlimited. Even better when FBX animation is added.
     

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