playMaker

Author Topic: CoolColorCodes - Color-Coding in PlayMaker  (Read 3780 times)

Deek

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CoolColorCodes - Color-Coding in PlayMaker
« on: July 15, 2017, 04:09:23 PM »
Unlike a lot of other Visual-Scripting-Tools, PlayMaker doesn't contain any functionality to group several states in categories (like drawing a box around them and giving those a label; see UE4's Blueprints), wich would help organize FSMs especially once they become bloated.
But even with the lack of such functionality you can still help yourself out by giving your states colors that resemble recurring tasks and give life to your FSMs.

I'm talking, of course, about color-coding, the act of differentiation through color (for example: giving every state that tests/checks something a specific color like orange, giving states that are time-related like delays a different color like blue and so on...)
This not only makes your FSMs more visually appealing, but you also see at a glance immediately what which state does without having to look into it (at least if you stay persistent with your color definitions).

That's why I have experimented & collected several nice, unique and differently looking colors a while back which you can adapt and adopt into your PlayMaker Preferences>Colors Slots to your liking.

The first picture shows all colors live in action and the second one is an own example how I use to sort my actions (you don't need to define colors based on functionality, anything that should be differentiated can be sorted by colors like levels, objects, daytime, settings, ...)
The text file contains all color codes + 2 extra ones. In the Preferences just click on one the color fields and put a code in the 'Hex Color' field.

P.S.:
I gave them all somewhat odd names in an effort to give them all names that start with a different character than the other ones, because it is easier to give states colors by just typing the first letter of the color-name when selecting the state color, instead of clicking on them.

djaydino

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Re: CoolColorCodes - Color-Coding in PlayMaker
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2017, 09:25:35 AM »
Hi,
Indeed Color Coding is very useful,
I also tend to use global transitions to 'jump' to another group of actions instead of connection directly with an arrow.