Change Background Colors or Images in Scenes

Depending on your design, you can add a background to all scenes in a World or to individual scenes. You can use simple color backgrounds or images.

Preview and Test

You can preview and test the entire game either from the World workspace or UI node workspace or individual scenes (from the World workspace only).

• To preview a simulation of your entire game as it would look after export, select Run > Preview  button on the Buildbox Menu Bar.
• To preview an individual scene, do either of the following in the Scene Selector at the bottom of the World workspace:
  • Select the scene and select Run > Preview Selected Scene on the Buildbox menu bar.
  • Solo the (select a scene and press S on the keyboard) and click the Preview button on the Navigation bar.

The Preview window opens with your game or scene loaded where you select the desired preview settings and play the game or preview the selected scene.

Button	Icon	Description
Debug Mode		Highlights and shows the collision shapes of the assets in different colors during the game preview. See also Change Collision Shapes.
Take Screenshot		Allows you to take a screenshot of the game and save it to your desktop as a PNG file. Just click this button while previewing the game at the frame you want an image of.
Set Screen Size	N/A	Choose the mobile device screen size for your preview.
Zoom	N/A	Select a percentage value by which to scale the selected screen size for display.
Reload		Reloads the game to see the latest changes, if you’ve made any. Leave the Preview window open, and it will update the preview as you make changes to the game.
Script Logs		Opens the JavaScript logs that you can use for troubleshooting, if needed.

Integrating Custom Ads

If you would like to integrate a different ad network into your game, you must have the following requirements:

• Buildbox Pro subscription.
• Willing to edit Java text files.
• Access to the desired Ad Network’s instructions.

The following section will walk you through how to select the custom ad option before exporting your game.

1. Export your game with a custom SDK.
   1. On the Buildbox menu bar, select File > Project Settings
   2. In the Project Settings window click the Application Store drop-down and select the desired Application Store.
   3. In the Bundle ID field, enter a unique identifier.
   4. Click the SDKs tab.
   5. Select the desired Application Store tab.
   6. Click the Add button and select Custom.
   7. Click OK.
   8. Follow the steps in Export a Game Project to optimize and export your game.
2. Follow the instructions from your ad provider to edit the following files located in your exported game folder.
   
   Android

   In your Android project folder, locate the AdIntegratorInterface.java file.
   app > java > com > buildbox > adapter > custom.
   
   iOS

   In your iOS project folder, locate the CustomAdIntegrator.mm file.
   ios > BBPlayer
   

Interval and Threshold Node

This action node toggles the visibility of an asset based on the Interval and Threshold values. Interval is the number of times this node is enabled. Threshold is the distance that the first-spawned Character has traveled.

• To enable this node, connect the Enabled input to another node’s output.
• To activate other nodes after changing the asset’s visibility, connect the Visible output to any desired node inputs.

To learn more about the Interval and Threshold attributes, click the dropdowns below:

Threshold

Threshold is the distance that the first-spawned Character has traveled in the game. After the first-spawned character travels the distance specified by the Threshold attribute, this node changes the asset’s visibility.

To change the asset’s visibility with the threshold, select the Use Threshold checkbox and in the Visibility Threshold field, enter a distance amount in units.

The following is an example of a UI text asset that appears on the In-game UI screen after the player restarts the level.

After the game starts, the Player character asset moves forward in the Z direction.		After the Character travels 100 units, the text appears at the bottom of the screen.

Interval

Interval is the number of times this node has been enabled. After this node enables the number of times specified by the Interval attribute, this node changes the asset’s visibility.

To change the asset’s visibility with an interval, select the Use Interval checkbox and in the Interval field, enter the interval amount.

The following is an example of a UI text asset that appears on the Game Over UI screen after the player dies after the second attempt.

After the player arrives at the Game Over screen for the first time, the interval increases to 1.		After arriving at the Game Over screen a second time, the interval increases to 2 and makes the text appear with a tip.

Node Attributes

If needed, you can also customize this node. For details, see Customizing Nodes.

World Outliner

The Outliner panel in a 3D world provides a hierarchical outline of the contents of your game world. It lists all the assets you have in the current scene and the world.

By default, each world has a camera and a light source, which you cannot delete. For each scene, a set of Start and End points is added by default (see Scene Editor). As you add assets to your world or if you select a template, all additional objects will be displayed in the Outliner, as shown in the image below on the left.

If your click the Collision Shape Editor button on the Scene Editor toolbar, the Start and If Collide nodes of the assets with the collision shapes will also appear in the Outliner, as shown int he image below on the right. See also Viewing Collision Shapes.

.     

You can lock, hide, add, or delete items in the current Scene by making the corresponding selections for each item in the Outliner.

Here’s what you can do in the Outliner:

• To select multiple assets, hold Shift and click the names of all of the desired assets.
• To see the properties of an object, select it in the Outliner, and view or edit them in the Options panel.
• To hide an asset from the scene, click the option in the Show/Hide column.
  The asset will be marked with an x next to it. You won’t be able to see, move, or edit the asset while it’s hidden.
  NOTE: If you hide or lock the camera in one scene, they will be hidden or locked respectively in all scenes in the current world.
• To lock an asset its current position in the scene to avoid accidentally selecting, moving, or deleting it while you edit your scene, click the option in the Lock column.
  The asset will be marked with a lock next to it.
• To delete an asset, select it in the Outliner and click the x button at the bottom or press the Delete key.
  NOTE: You can’t delete the camera, light source, and hidden assets.
• To add an asset to the Outliner, drag the asset from the Asset Panel.

Additionally, you can click the Add button at the bottom of the Outliner and add the following to the scene:

For more details and usage example, see the Outliner video below.

Navigation Bar

This bar is located at the top of the Buildbox window allows you to navigate to different editors and Node Maps. For example, you’d use this bar to go back from the current workspace to the Mind Map, 3D World, an asset’s Node Map.

After you create a project or open Buildbox, the home and Mind map are the only tabs that appear on the Navigation bar.

After you open a World editor, UI editor or an asset’s Node Map, its tab appears on the Navigation bar.

After you open an asset’s node map, you see its name and a thumbnail of its current appearance.

• The current tab is always dark with orange text.
• To navigate to a different editor or node map, click the tab with the matching name or icon.
• To navigate to the Mind Map, click the tab with its icon or click the current tab.
• To delete a tab, click the x next to its name.
• To move and change the order of a tab click and drag it along the navigation bar.

The Navigation bar also provides a set of buttons that allow you to preview your game or test an individual scene, add fonts, and change your project settings.

Button	Icon	Description
Preview		Allows you to preview the game or the solo scene, if selected in the Scene Selector. For details, see Preview and Testing.
Preview Scene		This button is present only in the World Editor. It allow you to preview your game by skipping all UI screens and preceding scenes in the World and starting from the current game scene. See also Preview and Testing.

Animation Bar

The Animation Bar is the horizontal bar with a frame timeline at the bottom of the World workspace. It allows you to create a motion sequence of the selected character or object, which will be played across a timeline within a scene. The timeline is used to properly key animations for the movement, rotation, and scale values, with each selected frame highlighted in orange.

To access the Animation Bar, select View > Animation Bar.

Button	Icon	Allows you to
Play		Play the animation of the currently selected character or object.
Record		Record the animation sequence of the selected character or object.
Loop		Play your animation continuously.
Toggle Graph Editor		Expand/collapse the Graph Animation Editor.

To animate an object:

1. Select the object that you want to animate in the Scene Editor.
2. Click the frame number in the Animation Bar, for example 0, and position the object to the location in the scene where you want it to be at this point.
3. Click the Record button.
4. Click the next frame number in the Animation Bar, for example, 20, and move the object to a new location in the scene.
5. Continue with the process until you create the desired movement on the screen.
6. Click the Record button when done.
7. To preview the animation, click the Play button.

Importing FBX Files with 3D Animations

To add a 3D animated model to your game, drag an FBX file that contains any of the following into a scene.

• Model—mesh or shape of the asset.
• Skeleton—joint or bone hierarchy bound to the model and allows it to bend, twist, and change shape during an animation.
• Animation—motion and timing of the skeleton or model.

FBX Import Options Window

When you drag another animation FBX file that contains the same skeleton as another animation, you need to choose to either create a brand new asset, or apply the animation to an existing asset.

• When you import an FBX file that has a similar skeleton as another asset, it will appear in the Shared Skeletons panel.
• To apply a texture to the model, click the Texture button, then select the desired texture image.
  If a model that has vertex color applied to a surface, it will only show as grey. To apply a color to an FBX asset without using a texture, see Sub Scene.
• When you select a skeleton from the Shared Skeletons panel, a list of all the animations associated with that skeleton displays in the Existing Animations panel.
• To add the animation to a skeleton:
  • Select the skeleton in the Shared Skeletons panel.
  • Click Modify Selected and Add Animation.
  • Click Import.
• To replace an animation:
  1. Make sure the animation FBX file has the same skeleton and file name and drag it to the scene editor.
  2. In the Shared Skeletons panel, select the skeleton associated with the original animation.
  3. In the Existing Animations panel, select the name of the animation you want to replace.
  4. Select Replace Animation and click Import.
• To add the animation as a new asset, click Create New then Import.
• To replace the model of an existing skeleton:
  • Import an FBX file that contains the desired model with a similar skeleton as another asset.
  • In the FBX Import Options window, select Replace Asset and click Import.

3D Animation Nodes

After you create an asset from an FBX file, there are two nodes inside the assets Node Map: Sub-Scene and Keyframe Animation, both with the same name as the FBX file name.

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