This isn't distinctly a how to post. This is simply me loosely reporting my progress learning GML and creating my own dream software, just like classic KidPix!
It's obvious I am all over the place in terms of what I talk about on my blog. I wish I could get more support for my art/programming related posts, but people only engage with (*cough*, merely glance at...) my more heated emotionally charged posts. :|
It's ok to be varied. It's ok to talk about different things. They call come back to my life and attempts to forge new paths for myself, after all the weirdness I've experienced. That is the theme of my blog.
I am new to GML and only started learning last November and did some tutorials very shoddily. Completely ending up broken and unlike the intended games. Because I needed to start with something simpler.
Then I made Tassie Travels while stuck on a catamaran travelling the seas around Tasmania, heading to Hobart. I was offline and didn't have access to manual. It was a fantastic learning experience as I had to simply persevere with limited access to checking any online resources. Truth be told, it's obviously best to have the manual, but I challenged myself.
When I started with the simple drawing of lines to a surface. It took me awhile to understand GMLS surface and honestly, I am a fucking idiot and don't know anything.
In the picture below, I didn't know how to make it so I couldn't draw on the GUI. It looked ugly as frick. I made an offset, as I write below goes in the create event...
//surface width
surfW = room_width
surfH = room_height
//width and height of controls for an offset
ctrlW = 0
ctrlH = 32
This in the step
if !surface_exists(paint){
paint = surface_create(surfW,surfH)
}
And this is in the draw event.
draw_surface(paint,ctrlW,ctrlH);This created an offset so I couldn't draw on GUI 32px area. It also made it so I needed to offset anytime the cursor was involved, but I am too lazy to find my code.
Touch support for Gamemaker is finicky at best, so maybe it's ridiculous for me to be making this in the first place. Still, I've managed to do doodles. On Wacom Cintiq it is fairly decent, but I had to disable tapping settings. When testing with my Surface pro, after I turned off double tap settings and whatnot in windows, it got a bit better. It still does a 'touch ring' and if I draw at normal speed, it seems to make a gap.
As expected, the lines don't come out as fast and slick as any professional art program. It's still a newb GameMaker game. I hope as I learn more about programming in coming months, then I'll understand how to make more fluid, enjoyable software. Maybe I'll have to move to a different game engine like Unity, eesh.
Still I managed to make a text tool today. All my drawing, erasing, painting and such are 'drawing' to the same surface as I mentioned above. I'm proud I got popups working for a variety of things, saving, closing and text tool input. The text tool turned out to be way easier than I thought.
When I fix anything, I break others. I was trying to do switch statements for all the different tools, but still lose track of what needs to be changed and how it affects other areas. Basically, my head is spinning and I need a break, thus, why I am rambling on here.
I want to develop my skills with programming, this has been a relatively normal post filled with gifs compared to my usual rambles. But nobody reads my long rambles as they are fraught with weirdness.
I'm starting a bootcamp at 42Adelaide next week. It's supposed to be an intensive coding experience and if you pass it, you're guaranteed a place in their free school. Regardless of if I get in, it'll be a fun and rewarding time for me, as it gives me something to do rather than obsessing over this project. The midyear intake is looking particularly enticing, less see if I'm up to snuff.
Since 'mania' disrupted my TAFE course I've been without structure yet again, just like last half of last year. It may have looked like I posted a lot around the end of March, but I actually just spammed old drafts once I was back from the hospital. Not too long after that, we swiftly went on a sailing trip.
I prefer to not talk about what took place in March, because it is far to intense to resurface such feelings, even for someone like me, especially for someone like me that's the one who's endured it. Some things are too raw to need to analyse and share.
Only now I was capable of writing blog posts on last year! Although I rambled about it on Instagram, I didn't attempt to put it into written words, which is a bit more permanent than 24hour stories.
I have experienced very intense and bizarre phantasms, things beyond the realm of human understanding. Things that other people believe are reserved to fairytales continue to haunt me. It's there every nighttime, when it spins me around look at the moon. When it wraps invisible threads around my hands and fingers, and encourages me to stare in wonder at the stars.
I am exhausted attempting to recount the fables I've experienced. The way it made me draw with surrealist tangents for a few days, but then promptly left me, much to my dismay. Right now my pinkie is fritzing out, another meaningless expression from a high and mighty God(s?). Or a gesture I will never comprehend because it exceeds the processing power of my puny mortal brain.
Maybe there is not much else I can do with this project right now, doing a paint bucket tool is quite advanced. I might move onto a new project while and let this one sit aside for awhile. That tends to help me.
Go ahead, steal my music I've posted below and don't read a word I've said. :|
Anyways Here is my mascot, Noot! As I named my project Nootpad. You can see my process on Github project here!
