New series targeting beginners, Tips/Tricks/Breakdown-ish

[Lane]

I was doing some 1-on-1 help with an artist via Skype today that is a beginner PlayMaker user and the types of questions he was asking all seemed to feel like they fit into a beginner getting started kind of category so I wanted to see what the community's thoughts are on it.

Personally, I think this could have a lot of value because of its abstract nature. For instance the question might be "How do I create random spawn locations?". While the answer is simple enough to explain, the thought process to figure out how to do it and break down the workflow to create it is what is of real value so I want to literally take some basic issues, high level questions or vague ideas and start approaching them on a fundamental level and try to teach the viewer how to solve his own problems rather than looking for a tutorial for every single individual issue he may have.

For instance, the Health Template tutorial in the Top Down Shooter series is a great example for a health system but its buried in the TDS series so a lot of people immediately put it off because its not in their genre (even though it doesn't matter). I kinda regret doing a series that was titled genre specific because you can lose valuable information like that inside it so I want to try this more abstract series. A better approach might be "How do health systems work?" then we go over the concept of a health system and how it can be laid out.

So keeping that in mind; first of all what are your thoughts on the series itself? Next, what are some topics you might suggest for this?

Thanks
Lane

[coffeeANDsoda]

If you mean making your own video tutorial series for beginners, I'd be interested in watching them. Especially if you go further than the tutorials that hutong games channel provides. 

For example, the puzzle quest tutorial. I think it would of been more effective had there been a part of the video covering how a player would die and start over or even spawn to lets say a check point or randomly generated empty object.

I thought that tutorial was alright and I did use the puzzle matching element for a small game I uploaded awhile back, but it bothered me that health management wasn't really covered in the video.

[Thomas Pasieka]

@Lane - I think I know the guy you had the 1 on 1 with I just saw this post so I may as well say what I think.

Being a beginner with Playmaker I find it more difficult to wrap my head around the "I need X and Y" state and "A" and "B" Transition and perhaps a Float "Variable" on top. After going through the various videos that you guys so nicely put together I feel more confident at this point. These things have to sit first before moving on. That I think is important.

Now, I am the guy who learns best by trying to crack little tasks like...

* How do I spawn cubes randomly within a set area
* How do I trigger a sound and have it fade in/out when I enter the trigger zone
* How do I create Player stats and display/update them(Health, Constitution, Dexterity or such)

In essence, I much rather see tutorials on 1 subject that can be wrapped up within 1 video instead of being drawn out over many. Tutorial topics can and perhaps should be simple, that's how new people learn best in my opinion. Examples should be bare minimum and easy to follow.

Looking forward to seeing some fresh tutorials!

Thomas Pasieka

[djaydino]

yes it would be nice to have some tutorial focused on workflow

when i started with playmaker, i watched the standard playmaker tutorials
and started from there.
and had learned my self a bad workflow
with way to many states going on,
That time i did not know about the Add Global Transition for example.
(i don't think there is a explanation about it in the old tutorial or i might have overseen it)
So i added a transition on every state and connected them to where i wanted it to go, and that was very messy

maybe add some info about global vs local variables and set / get fsm variables,
when to use them and why.

some info about custom actions (how to install them, about EcoSystem)

i will think of some more later

greeting,

Dino

[Merto]

The basics of using Vector3 variables would be more than awesome.

[Lane]

Good thoughts, thanks for your inputs so far.

I'll start working on some stuff and get a batch of short videos along these lines put together and we'll see how it goes.

[coffeeANDsoda]

I'll start working on some stuff and get a batch of short videos along these lines put together and we'll see how it goes.

Well..I'm still learning how to use playmaker, so I am curious as to what you would cover in a tutorial series.

[Richardm1985]

Thanks Lane for undertaking the task of helping educate beginners.

Could you also please consider working with mecanim?

A few tutorials on changing animations, using layers and the Playmaker animator sync script? Could you even run through examples showing things like "this is how to get your character from idle to walk to run and vise versa"?

Thank you

[Lane]

Sure. That's a higher priority than this tips/breakdown stuff actually. I just recently got into it and started figuring the ins and outs of Mecanim myself so it may take a little time to get those moved along. I've been taking my time with understanding how things work before I make new videos that are expected to explain best practices

[wheretheidivides]

A video tutorial on how to use photon networking would be good (if there isn't one yet).

[Vicc]

...

Personally, I think this could have a lot of value because of its abstract nature. For instance the question might be "How do I create random spawn locations?". While the answer is simple enough to explain, the thought process to figure out how to do it and break down the workflow to create it is what is of real value so I want to literally take some basic issues, high level questions or vague ideas and start approaching them on a fundamental level and try to teach the viewer how to solve his own problems rather than looking for a tutorial for every single individual issue he may have.

...

So keeping that in mind; first of all what are your thoughts on the series itself? Next, what are some topics you might suggest for this?

Greetings Lane, total newbie here. Not even a "lurker" of these forums... Bought PlayMaker just yesterday.

I find your post to be of great interest. I'm a boardgame designer wanting to test the waters of videogame design but feel that I completely lack what I call "the technical association skills" needed to put a prototype game. I understand most of them basic & general game development concepts, from prefabs and navmeshes to FSMs and pool managers, but don't know for sure how should I use them to achieve a specific goal...

In other words, here's my actual dilemma: I'm having a hard time coming up with the "hows" of a particular game feature implementation.

For example, if I want selectable agents to become playable characters for a brief time only, I can figure out a "logical approach" may be coming up with this, lets say, SELECT/DESELECT ENEMY events using some destroy/create object actions together with some input and time "tracking" actions and PlayMaker will really make it easy for me, right? Will that do the trick? Aren't there other considerations to take into account? I dunno for sure... and that's the point. I don't know that I DON'T KNOW stuff... Should I create OR activate the "playable character" object? If I wanted to select an agent to become playable for as long as the player needed, Would I need to use the 'Get Property' action too?

Another example is, I want to have a single scene-only game where constant on-the-fly creation of a realistic moving platform (that is, one that's walkable even by agents that were outside the platform) happens every 2 minutes and until the game ends. I know that this somehow can be done by instantiating prefabs at runtime (but is it possible to instantiate a mesh together with door functionality, sound effects and enemy agents in randomized positions on top of the platform?) and I know that destruction of all these objects would be needed afterwards for memory-optimisation purposes before creating the next platform, however, Can I achieve all this just using PlayMaker without a single line of code? I'm way outta my league here... Is my game prototype overly ambitious or am I truly the eternal programming neophyte???

So, a video tutorial on how to figure out "the hows" to properly approach specific implementations would be a truly INVALUABLE help.


Thanx for reading this.

Keep up the good work!

[wheretheidivides]

"Can I achieve all this just using PlayMaker without a single line of code"


Yes.

[djaydino]

here you can find some tutorial videos  on Hutong games YouTube Chanel

these tutorials might interest you form Cloud3

Ecosystem is an ad-on for playmaker to find and get Custom Actions made by the community of playmaker.

i suggest you to watch and follow (preferably on a 2nd screen) several tutorials and get a bit used to playmaker 1st (for example the basic series on Hutong games YouTube Chanel)

then start on your project and learn while doing

And YES you can achieve anything you said here and a lot more with Playmaker.

and A LOT faster than learning Coding C# or Java.

many coders are using Playmaker because it works a lot faster than manually scripting everything.

a good Tip! Backup your project somewhere else regularly so if things go wrong you can go back to before it went wrong. i have 10+ backups from my games sorted by date and/or Crucial changes.

friendly greetings,
Dino

[Vicc]

Thanx DjayDino, I'll check those out and do my homework...

I found Lane's "Creating an object at random positions" tutorial (over at this thread: http://hutonggames.com/playmakerforum/index.php?topic=9041.0 ) to be truly encouraging!!! To the point and easy to follow, even for me... and I now know how 'vector3' actions may be used for...

I hope the new series for beginners follow the same standard and address everything from instantiation to navigation and more!

[Lane]

I'm glad you found it useful, Vicc.

I had sort of settled to put these sorts of videos into the Quick Tips playlist, but you have an interesting point about going from installation forward with videos. We had talked a bit about making a new intro series using the latest features of Unity and Playmaker but have not got around to fleshing that idea out... I'll make an effort to look into some clearly defined topic ideas and get it rolling.