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Author Topic: Design and Programming Integration with PlayMaker  (Read 5631 times)

JoeProgram

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Design and Programming Integration with PlayMaker
« on: September 13, 2012, 10:44:45 AM »
Hello PlayMaker community!

At my company we're evaluating a workflow where the designers work in PlayMaker and the engineers provide custom code that power the FSMs.  I'm looking for any tutorials or resources on this workflow, or general advice on how to separate which logic will be in code, and which logic will be done in PlayMaker.

So far I've found the video at: but it uses SendMessage(), which seems like it tightly couples the code and the FSM in a brittle way.

Thanks!

jeanfabre

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Re: Design and Programming Integration with PlayMaker
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2012, 03:03:52 PM »
hi,

I very much like your question, this is actually the ideal way to make the most out of playmaker.

 I apply several technics to achieve efficient inter communications between playmaker and many many other custom frameworks, saas and and of course asset store scripts and tools.

I think that I have so far divided this communication need in three different approches:

1: Singular custom actions. When you need to call a simple api functions, writing custom actions for each of these function is the best and quikest way

2: bridges and proxies: sometimes, the system you need to use is giving lots of feedback, like events, callback, delegates. in that situation, creating bridges or proxy components is very convenient, the bridge simply seats in the middle. It is often the case where you can modify the system, and that's where bridges really shine.

3: editor wizards for custom actions automatic generation. When you need to have a database typically, the possibilities are infinite. I came up with what i think a great way to operate: building an editor wizard that let the playmaker developer define his/her need, and the wizard the generate the custom action(s). this works very well, and give the playmaker developer a very precise set actions, instead of trying desperatly to create generic actions that becomes convuluted and loose total meaning.

 This topic is vast and really interesting, don't hesitate to pm me, so that we can talk more about this. of course, feel free to bounce on what i just highlited, it's barely scratchning the surface.  You can find concrete examples of what I explained on the user wiki, where i created numerous bridges,and custom actions for various systems.

https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W714

namely have a look at photon, vectrosity, input.touches and targetpro. i am soon going to release ports for monosqlite, parse and pusher saas, which are by far the most complex ports I have created for playmaker community, beacuse they implement editor wizards with programatic action generation, very cool, because non progrmmers gain access to very complex features.

bye,

 jean

JoeProgram

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Re: Design and Programming Integration with PlayMaker
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2012, 03:18:13 PM »
Thanks Jean!  My team will be looking into this more next week, and I'm glad I can bring this information to them.

Joe