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Author Topic: Learning Playmaker as an experienced programmer  (Read 651 times)

casadmack74

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Learning Playmaker as an experienced programmer
« on: January 20, 2021, 12:58:00 PM »
Are there any learning resources to learn Playmaker for someone who's totally comfortable programming?

And am I correct in thinking that there's some things that can be done faster/more efficiently in Playmaker compared to writing a script from scratch? One of the things I get concerned about with my projects is after a certain point you start accumulating tons and tons of scripts, I feel like a lot of these scripts could've been done in PM instead.

I'm an experienced programmer and can comfortably write anything in C# in Unity, and as I look YouTube and google I find all the Playmaker tutorials are targeted for complete beginners who don't know coding. I'm neither of these.

Is there any resource (preferably in video form as that what works best for me) that can teach me playmaker without wasting time explaining Unity/programming basics? There's some short intro videos here and there but nothing in depth it seems.

nuFF3

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Re: Learning Playmaker as an experienced programmer
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2021, 01:21:08 PM »
Hmm, that's an interesting question "Are there any Playmaker tutorials for programmers?"

I don't know, but I could try to make one, might take a day, but I can try.

What kind of key points would you want coveren in this possibly-real-but-currently-hypothetical tutorial?


As for:
Quote
And am I correct in thinking that there's some things that can be done faster/more efficiently in Playmaker compared to writing a script from scratch?
That would depend on the script now wouldn't it.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2021, 01:31:56 PM by nuFF3 »

djaydino

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Re: Learning Playmaker as an experienced programmer
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2021, 05:58:08 AM »
Hi.
maybe some of my videos are useful.
https://www.youtube.com/jinxtergames

Quote
And am I correct in thinking that there's some things that can be done faster/more efficiently in Playmaker compared to writing a script from scratch?

Yes, many thigs can be done faster than coding, also debugging and testing different ways can be faster (for example enemy behaviors etc)

With Playmaker its a bit different way of thinking than in c# but i think you should get familiar fast with workflows on PM.

Its also a great advantage if you have C# knowledge so you can easily create custom actions/scripts.

The Playmaker API might be useful for you :)

Any specific thing you are thinking off doing in playmaker instead of C#?

jeanfabre

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Re: Learning Playmaker as an experienced programmer
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2021, 06:58:33 AM »
Hi,

 If you are an experienced programmer, the best way is to simply open the actions scripts and study the structure, it's simple enough to understand the concepts.

 I never create a custom action from scratch, I always open the few actions that look like what I want and copy paste what I need from them.

then, to use the playmaker api outside actions, in components. you basically have only few needs,

-- get to an fsm to read or write to fsm variables ( plenty of threads on this forum on that)

-- send fsm events, ( also plenty of threads on that)

if you plan on working with the api a lot, I strongly advice to get the playmaker utils asset from the ecosystem, it will contains tons of little helpers to facilitate working with playmaker from scripts. I wrote these along the last 10 years, plenty of things to simply open and look, pretty mucch all the playmaker api is used in this asset. So it's a great source of learning.

 If you have questions, simply make new posts on a very specific aspect, and ping me if you get no reply.

Bye,

 Jean