Monkey Flixel
Monkey Forums/Monkey Programming/Monkey Flixel
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| In November 2011 I started to port Flixel to Monkey. I think that many game developers are familiar with this library. If you don't, follow the link flixel.org I told nothing before, because I wasn't sure if I can handle it. Now I have some demos available, and I'm glad to provide it to the public. At the moment following classes are fully ported: FlxPoint, FlxRect, FlxPath, FlxBasic, FlxGroup, FlxState, FlxCamera, FlxObject, FlxText, FlxTimer Monkey Flixel will be distributed free for personal and commercial use. First public pre-alpha version will be ready by late January or early February. Up to this point I will periodically report about progress of development. Now, I invite you to take a look at some simple demos: 1. FlxCamera: Monkey Flixel | Original Flixel 2. FlxText (following drivers are supported: Native, AngelFont, FontMachine): Monkey Flixel | Original Flixel 3. Camera FX Demo 4. Follow Path Demo 5. Camera Follow Demo Also, current version of the port was used to implement game Stand Alone to participate in the Ludum Dare 22 contest Update. Example of use: AS3 code (original flixel): Monkey code (Monkey Flixel): |
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| Cool! Great work. Any source code to check already? |
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| Hey congratulations :) Always good to see new targets. |
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| Looks amazing! Glad to see FontMachine supported thed too :D |
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| Nice! I was really hoping to see a flixel port to monkey, I actually recommended it on the flixel forum a while ago. They were to focused on making a port for each lenguage, but with this there is no need for that anymore. I just hope we can see this soon. |
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| does it work on all platforms? |
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| Cool! Great work. Any source code to check already? Right I don't want to open source code because I often submit changes that aren't compatible with previous versions. However, I can show you an example of use (see update to the post) Looks amazing! Glad to see FontMachine supported thed too :D Thanks for Jungle Ide! I wouldn't have done anything without it. does it work on all platforms? Yes it works on all platforms |
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| Looks really good! |
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| Wow, impressive. |
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| Great work! |
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| correct me if I'm wrong but... shouldn't be this post into MONKEY CODE forum?? there's a lot of *BRILLIANT* libraries and snippets absolutely lost into the forums... I miss the code archives of Blitzbasic.com.. Looking for something around here is a complete mess :( And regarding Flixel, impressive, no doubt, great work! that's the reason why I think it should be on Monkey Code, to get the most of it and allow people to find it easily. ;) Thanks, |
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| great stuff! looking forward! Thanks |
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| This is awesome! Is it just me or the monkey version is a little bit faster/smoother? :D Now that we have MonkeyFlixel here...Maybe I should port FlashPunk and call it MonkeyPunk! |
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| OK. Latest News - I've completed the class FlxSprite. Unfortunately, part of the functional of the class was lost because mojo is not able to work with source images. The following methods are not available for FlxSprite on Monkey: stamp, drawLine, fill, replaceColor, pixelsOverlapPoint loadRotatedGraphic will be supported, but images need to be prepared manually (perhaps I'll write a simple command-line utility). drawLine, fill, can be emulated, but I do not know if that make any sense? Looking forward for your suggestions about these two functions. Also I've prepared a small demo (still in work) - http://lab.devolonter.ru/libs/monkey-flixel/flxinvaders/html5.html This video shows how it works on Android (sorry for low quality) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfkfS1s6gNg This is awesome! Is it just me or the monkey version is a little bit faster / smoother? : D So far it was impossible to test, but I expect the performance will be approximately equal. Perhaps a little smoother |
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| lookin good so far, Im not so worried about the commands that arent available, im more interested in the other stuff |
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| Good news! Porting is almost completed and alpha-version will be available for download very soon. Estimated release date - February 12, 2012 Now, there are several issues that I would like to resolve before publishing the code: 1. Very unstable OnUpdate () call time . In some targets the delta time between two calls OnUpdate with update rate equal to 60 can range from 16 to 25 ms. And in XNA from 16 to 32 ms. Is there a solution to this problem? I tried to insert the logic update in OnRender method - it works very well, until FPS does not drop below the target FPS, but if FPS is too low, then the whole logic fails ... Therefore, this solution was rejected. I would appreciate any help or advice. 2. Port works correctly only with the latest Monkey versions (v52-53), but these versions are only available to registered users. It would be nice if demo users were able to test library. Mark, is it possible to update demo version up to v53? Thank you! Now I would like to introduce some new demos: - Split Screen - Path Finding - Replay - Collisions - Tilemap - Particles - Invaders Game (updated) P.S. HTML5 and Flash versions are built with Monkey. P.P.S. Probably this post should be moved to Monkey Projects section? |
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| the collision stuff is interesting. will follow this I think, although I am enjoying diddy at the moment. |
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| Can't wait :^p |
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| Are the collisions box, sphere or pixel ? having pixel perfect collisions would be amazing, as long as its fast of course. |
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| good collision demo |
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| if FPS is too low, then the whole logic fails Without knowing what this means it's not possible to offer advice. I'll take a look when you release the code. |
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| Are the collisions box, sphere or pixel? As in original flixel collision box is used, but you can redefine this behavior with callback function Without knowing what this means it's not possible to offer advice. I'll take a look when you release the code. For example, at falling FPS to 10 if logic update is placed in OnRender, physics calculation happens too rarely and the interaction with the playing field becomes very bad (objects begin to fly through walls, etc.). I can send you the source code before the release by email. I would be grateful for any help! |
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| Is Flixel not using fixed time steps? |
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| Yes, as wiebo asked, are you using a fixed time-step? Using a variable time-step for physics/collisions is always going to cause trouble if those systems only work on the state at the end of the frame. You should be using a fixed time-step or at least limiting the allowed variation within reasonable bounds. |
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| @wiebo, @muddy_shoes You're right! I've missed that point, *facepalm*. I'll try to use fixed time step now. Thanks! |
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| Fixed time step works very well. This question is closed! |
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| Great. I will send an invoice your way :) |
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| @wiebo ok :) I'm sorry, but I have to move the release date for tomorrow. There are still a few bugs that I would like to fix before publish it. |
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| Take your time. And thank you for your hard work! :) |
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| Very nice, dont drop the development :) |
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| Very nice work! |
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| So I guess Monkey Fixel is an alternative for Mojo... Is that right? |
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| I think it's more like Diddy, that is, it is a framework based on Mojo library. But the framework design is based on flixel framework for AS3 game programming. |
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| @therevills, Hima is right, it is a framework based on Mojo library |
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| Any updates on when will this be released, I am really looking forward to test this. |
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| it is a framework based on Mojo library Hima is right, it is a framework based on Mojo library Ah cool, thanks for the answers :) It looks interesting... |
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| Alpha version flixel for Monkey just released! You can download the source code and get more information at the project page on GitHub. I will appreciate any feedback! P.S. All previous demo were updated, and also added a new demo Mode Game |
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| nice game downloading sources.... |
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| Amazing!, the mode port runs really smooth on html5. downloading. |
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| It's out? Great! Well done. I'm sure I'll be using bits of this at some point in the future. |
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| Cool! The HTML5 demo runs really well. Will have to have a play with this soon... |
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| devolonter, Great work - demos look great! So this runs on all Monkey targets?? Also conversion of original source code say from iOS is reasonably easy? |
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| I cant seem to run the demos, unittest cant be found, the bananas folder seems empty. |
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| I cant seem to run the demos, unittest cant be found, the bananas folder seems empty. Yes, it works at all Monkey targets. Conversion should be simple, I think. Port API is nearly the same as the original API. The main difference from the AS3 version that flixel for Monkey uses Monkey naming conventions. This must be taken into account when porting. For example, where in the original we wrote FlxG.play('sound'), in Monkey version it should be - FlxG.Play('sound') @slenkar you get sources with git or download it from https://github.com/devolonter/flixel-monkey/downloads ? You can download all bananas here - https://github.com/devolonter/flixel-monkey-bananas/downloads |
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| thanks do you use a particular map editor? |
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| This is fricken awesome. I believe you can use the Dame map editor with this? |
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| I think Dame exports LUA scripts only, so maybe not, |
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| I havent had the chance to verify yet until i get home later tonight, but i think Dame can export the maps to CSV format which Flixel can load..not sure though. |
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| do you use a particular map editor? No. All maps were taken from the original AS3 demo. In the game Mode map is generated automatically. I plan to make a small utility, something like Flixel Monkey Studio, in which map editor will be integrated. But I don't know when I'll start doing this. |
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| You can also use Ogmo Editor. It export to xml, I think, and we already have an xmlparser in the monkey example. |
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| Been using this at the weekend and noticed that it doesn't currently have a "FlxAnimationCallback" handling. To get working change AddAnimationCallback to... ...in FlxSprite.monkey |
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| @Skn3 lt'll be fixed in beta. Thank you! |
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| Devolonter, great work on this port btw. Check out http://monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=2504 Used this at the weekend and it is really very well done. Flixel is naturally very nice, but I especially liked the bits you ported over such as your method for callbacks as implementations! Keep up the good work :D |
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| @Skn3 Thanks for link! Interesting. Callbacks are implemented under influence of programming for Android. Glad you liked the implementation :) |
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| Since seeing Skn's demo, I am now looking forward to using this myself :) Devolonter, have you looked at the XNA version much? Any idea how much garbage is created during runtime (if any!) |
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| @raz while porting I've look throgh the original flixel code in detail and was impressed how much attention was paid to control garbage. I've tried to keep this feature and avoid the creation of unnecessary objects. There were no specific tests, but so far I didn't noticed any problems with garbage. In any case, if there are any in XNA, let me know and I'll try to fix it. P.S. Since the beta release is unfortunately delayed, I've added to the downloads section the nightly build. This version is only for testing and demo most likely will not work with it. But I'll be grateful if you help me with testing. You can see here the milestone for the beta version. |
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| Sure thing, I'll try to do some tests, if not tonight, this weekend :) |
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| Hi Devolonter (using the full-stable release), I've just tried it and unfortunately quite a bit of garbage is created when run as XNA. For Windows this isn't a problem, but it definitely is for Xbox and almost certainly is for Mobile. Here's a screen shot showing where the most garbage is created. http://imgur.com/6Dyo3 Over a meg was generated in about 2 seconds and the Xbox garbage collector kicks in every 1 meg, causing a noticeable stutter in game. I've not looked at the monkey flixel code yet to see what is causing it specifically, but i'll try to this weekend. |
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| @raz Wow! This is serious. What code (or demo) was launched at that moment? Could you tell by what means do you profile code in XNA? Maybe some tutorial? I have some free time and I would like to try to find out the reason for such amount of garbage. |
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| Sorry, yeah I probably should have actually given you some details! It was the collision demo in the bananas directory. http://chrismingay.co.uk/blog/2011/06/monkey-xna-and-clr-profiling/ explains how I do CLR Profiling. I've had it running fine in XP 32bit and today in Windows 7 64bit (though you have to run the created bat file as an administrator). I imagine the function I highlighted is creating at least 1 new quad each time the function is called. By the looks of it, it's getting called lots of times per update as well, so this would easily cause junk. |
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| Thanks for the link! By the looks of it, it's getting called lots of times per update as well, so this would easily cause junk. That's right. But unfortunately it's just the tip of the iceberg ... I've just run collision demo and found out that in one update loop there were created from 60 to 80 objects of FlxQuadTree and from 300 to 400 of FlxList. It's strange that I did not pay any attention to it when porting. I'll try to use recycling, to get rid of the generation of new instances. FlxList caching should not be a problem, but FlxQuadTree may be a headache task, so I can provide a working solution no earlier than tomorrow. I think this should help |
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| OK. Maybe not the best solution, but it seems it worked. Now the garbage collector in a collision demo is called once in 11 seconds (in Windows). I will continue the research with a profiler, to reduce the amount of garbage. [edit]To update the lastest-stable release, replace the following files: flxg.monkey, flxobject.monkey, system/flxlist.monkey and system/flxquadtree.monkey files from the archive. Nightly build was also updated.[/edit] |
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| Did you get the CLR profiling working ok? :) I'll give things another look tonight and help in whatever way I can. |
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| Hi! Profiler works fine :) It's a great tool. Thank you! By the way, I found the CLR Profiler for. NET Framework 4, it works without .bat file. You can download it here - http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=16273 After more thorough testing, I found a few places for improvement, as well as fixed caching bug, which had caused an infinite loop. Now in collision demo, garbage collection is called once every 20 seconds, and the mode-game demo no more than two times per minute. To update the lastest-stable release, replace the following files: flxg.monkey, flxobject.monkey, system/flxlist.monkey and system/flxquadtree.monkey files from the archive. Nightly build was also updated. |
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| Hey glad to hear it. Flixel seems perfect for the game I hope to make (specifically the whole collision handling thing), so I look forward to using it. |
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Just tried this again Devolonter and there is much less junk now :) Angelfont is causing a lot of junk still though I'm not sure how much there is that can be done about this though because XNA is really bad at handling strings during run time (to the point where I removed all strings from Ninjah and used images for all text). Commenting out _driver.Draw(x,y) within the DrawSurface method of flxText and running the same collision demo creates the following  And there isn't too much you can do about NativeMethods.Point |
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| I just tried the mode demo and amazing to see that NativeMethods.POINT is the only major cause of junk (once text drawing is disabled) :) |
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| Hi! I'm glad to hear it! :) I will look how to optimize the rendering of text, but for now I can not understand the reason for this amount of garbage. Maybe I should look at the code generated by the Monkey. |
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| (I think) It's because strings aren't managed objects and so every time you parse a string to get the individual characters (as Angel font would to display the string), it's creating a new instance of a string object. I'm half working on a system that converts a string in to a managed object. It reads the string at creation and then converts each character in to relative coordinates (so basically turns a string in to an object full of ints). It doesn't do any clever wrapping or anything, but it will almost certainly be enough for what I need. |
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| @raz I think you're right. Your idea sounds interesting! Should we wait any patch for flixel-monkey or it is suitable only for your project? In any case, thanks for the idea! |
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| I'll have to clear it up a bit, but I'd be happy for it to be used if it were useful! You can't really do much with it yet, but the syntax is currently... testStringSmall = New Text()
testStringSmall.SetSize(Text.SMALL)
testStringSmall.SetPos(200,200)
testStringSmall.AddLine("the third line")
testStringSmall.AddLine("shows unassinged characters")
testStringSmall.AddLine("£ $ %")
testStringSmall.AddLine("it sure does!") |
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| Nice! I will be waiting. Thanks! |
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I just picked up the latest main branch of this and also looked at the pre-beta branch. There's a bug I noticed on line 140 of flxsprite.monkey on both versions.If (reverse) Then _flipped = True Else _flipped = True End if I changed it to this to fix it _flipped = reverse |
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| Hi! Fixed that. Thank you! |
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| Hello, Nightly builds now support the Jungle IDE automatic module updater! You can download the new version here - https://github.com/downloads/devolonter/flixel-monkey/flixel-monkey-nightly.zip Important! Remember that nightly builds are for testing only, and may be unstable. |
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| Hello, The decision to release one more interim alpha-version before the beta release was motivated by the following reasons: 1. The release of beta-version, unfortunately, was obscenely delayed 2. Compilation errors in the Monkey v58 So, meet Flixel for Monkey v1.0a2. List of changes: * Compatibility with Monkey v58 * Added support of the Jungle IDE automatic module updater * The prefix of internal library assets was changed by suffix _flx. Now you can filter the application resources using standard Monkey tools, without breaking the framework. For example, #IMAGE_FILES = "* _flx.png|* _your_filter.png" * Added implementation of Revive method for FlxGroup class. This API is absent in original flixel * Simplified the use of FlxBasic.Cameras property. Now, to specify object cameras use a simple snippet: object.Cameras = [id1, id2, ..]. Note that now FlxBasic.Cameras is a property, rather than a field and, therefore, a CamelCase is used * Added support of the Cameras property for class FlxGroup. This API is absent in original flixel * Added FlxText.GetFontObject method. In order for you to have the opportunity to customize the font properties for a particular object * Added FlxG.RemoveBitmap function. This API is absent in original flixel * Added the accelerometer support in WP7 * Improved class FlxQuadTree FlxObject.SeparateX and FlxObject.SeparateY functions. Now they do not generate a huge amount of garbage * The use of class FlxArray is simplified. All methods are replaced by functions, and now you have to use it static. For example, FlxArray<Int>.GetRandom(array) * Many other bug fixes But that's not all! Now Flixel for Monkey has a website that will contain some useful information. Hope you enjoy it! Official website: http://devolonter.github.com/flixel-monkey/. There you can download the latest version of the framework. P.S. Now you can support the project financially! In Donate section you will find everything that’s necessary for it:) Thank you! |
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| Its great to see this coming along :)! Definitely looking forward to updates on the Monkey Flixel website. BTW, does this current version of Monkey Flixel supports joystick input yet? |
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| Cool that you're using Bootstrap. You should use Font Awesome too! http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome/ |
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| BTW, does this current version of Monkey Flixel supports joystick input yet? Yes, current Flixel for Monkey version supports joystick. Use FlxG.Joustick(unit = 0) to get the object of Joystick class, which contains all the methods of generic input class, such as Pressed, JustPressed, JustReleased, and, additionally, has the X, Y and Z properties Cool that you're using Bootstrap. You should use Font Awesome too! http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome/ Wow! Thanks for link! I definitely will use this |
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| Important update! * Fixed two critical bugs in the FlxEmitter and FlxSound classes. * Now, to revive all the elements in the group use FlxGroup.ReviveAll Learn more about bugs here. Sorry. |
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| I've been playing with Flixel monkey since I am used to work with the as3 version. I don't know if it's my problem or what but I get an "Array out of Index" error on FlxTilemap.monkey, line 213, when I make more than 10 SwitchState when having a tilemap on a state. |
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| Hi! Can you send me code example on email? Thanks! |
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| Hi! There is an important fix for those who use FlxTilemap and FlxG.SwitchState. Replace the file FlxTilemap by the file from here: flxtilemap.monkey This fix will be included into the next release. |
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| Hi! Update v1.0a3 is now available. Only bug fixes are included. Download the update. -- Best regards |
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| Your "Quickstart" guide says, "Monkey currently does not support reflection, so here we emulate necessary functional" I think monkey supports reflection now. Does that mean the lib will be updated to reflect that? |
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| Does that mean the lib will be updated to reflect that? Yes, I'm currently working on it. Version with reflection support will be released in a couple of weeks. |
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