OFFICIAL GMS2 Roadmap 2019

rmanthorp

GameMaker Staff
Admin
GameMaker Dev.
Hey all,

We've got our roadmap for GameMaker Studio 2 in 2019 live. It's broad and subject to change much like before. However, moving on the feedback we had from the survey we ran last year: GML improvements are a top priority for us in 2019. 2.2.2 will be going into beta very shortly so we hope you are looking forward to it!

https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/articles/231719448-GMS2-Roadmap

Let me know if you have any questions about the roadmap and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks!
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
Here are a number of questions I have about the roadmap:
  • Will the "font handling updates" include better support for native font rendering and automatic character replacement? YoYo should know by now that the current texture-based font system just doesn't work for right-to-left, CJK and CTL text, and it has been a major pain point for GM over the past decade. It severely hampers the ability of GMS 2 and products made with GMS 2 to reach beyond its current geographic audience.
  • For HTML5 mobile audio fixes, would you also be willing to look at other loading issues on the HTML5 export?, These include the "synchronous XHR is deprecated" warnings on Chrome when you try to read included files or getting the loading screen to appear earlier (right now it has to wait for the entire JS file). It seems like an appropriate time to address those too, given that they are part of the same pipeline.
  • What exactly is "Runtime GIF Saving"? And since you already have a license to libmpeg, would it be possible to save video formats as well, if it's not too much work?
  • Are only IAP extensions reviewed for 2.2.3? There are plenty of other ad and API vendor extensions under YoYo's roster that are massively out of date or even blocking compiles. I'm also wondering if YoYo would be open to accelerating the process with coding help from contractors or the community in general, since the source is already in the open to start with.
  • Will the extensibility of runners be revisited as part of 2.2.3's extension review? Extension developers have been asking for things like access to internal resources (e.g. surfaces, buffers, data structures, sandbox, etc.), activity responses and other system hooks for a long time, and there's a chance of internal YoYo developers needing those same hooks as part of the review.
  • Why are some items appearing on both the current roadmap and the list of planned features? An example of this is the additions to GML slated for the end of the year. Please clarify or cross the in-progress items off the list of planned features.
Edit: I would like to know what the status of the audio engine is as of today. I remember that there was a licensing issue last year that forced YoYo to fall back to a more basic mechanism, and the continued reports of cracking audio suggests that the fallback is still being used. Items involving negotiation is probably not roadmap material since YoYo doesn't have all the cards, but it would be important to note the rough status of that and open hooks for custom audio integrations if resolution is unlikely.
 
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YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
These include the "synchronous XHR is deprecated" warnings on Chrome when you try to read included files
I don't think this bit is fixable without preloading all included files on game start - http_get/buffer_load_async have to be used in combination with _open_from_string versions of file functions. Same as for console development, really - async everything.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
I don't think this bit is fixable without preloading all included files on game start - http_get/buffer_load_async have to be used in combination with _open_from_string versions of file functions. Same as for console development, really - async everything.
That's what I'm looking for. Either make it so that all included files get loaded asynchronously in the loading screen, or have the their content seeded into the JS file to start with. For the async-on-load case specifically, if the runner sees the "file" in local storage already, it should skip the XHR altogether.
 

True Valhalla

Full-Time Developer
GMC Elder
Really looking forward to 2.2.2 - especially the font handling updates and HTML5 fixes. Glad to see "stability" at the top of the list for Q2.

Keep up the great work!
 

rmanthorp

GameMaker Staff
Admin
GameMaker Dev.
Here are a number of questions I have about the roadmap:
  • Will the "font handling updates" include better support for native font rendering and automatic character replacement? YoYo should know by now that the current texture-based font system just doesn't work for right-to-left, CJK and CTL text, and it has been a major pain point for GM over the past decade. It severely hampers the ability of GMS 2 and products made with GMS 2 to reach beyond its current geographic audience.
  • For HTML5 mobile audio fixes, would you also be willing to look at other loading issues on the HTML5 export?, These include the "synchronous XHR is deprecated" warnings on Chrome when you try to read included files or getting the loading screen to appear earlier (right now it has to wait for the entire JS file). It seems like an appropriate time to address those too, given that they are part of the same pipeline.
  • What exactly is "Runtime GIF Saving"? And since you already have a license to libmpeg, would it be possible to save video formats as well, if it's not too much work?
  • Are only IAP extensions reviewed for 2.2.3? There are plenty of other ad and API vendor extensions under YoYo's roster that are massively out of date or even blocking compiles. I'm also wondering if YoYo would be open to accelerating the process with coding help from contractors or the community in general, since the source is already in the open to start with.
  • Will the extensibility of runners be revisited as part of 2.2.3's extension review? Extension developers have been asking for things like access to internal resources (e.g. surfaces, buffers, data structures, sandbox, etc.), activity responses and other system hooks for a long time, and there's a chance of internal YoYo developers needing those same hooks as part of the review.
  • Why are some items appearing on both the current roadmap and the list of planned features? An example of this is the additions to GML slated for the end of the year. Please clarify or cross the in-progress items off the list of planned features.
Edit: I would like to know what the status of the audio engine is as of today. I remember that there was a licensing issue last year that forced YoYo to fall back to a more basic mechanism, and the continued reports of cracking audio suggests that the fallback is still being used. Items involving negotiation is probably not roadmap material since YoYo doesn't have all the cards, but it would be important to note the rough status of that and open hooks for custom audio integrations if resolution is unlikely.
OK. Here goes:

1. Sorry, this isn't included in 2.2.2 - file bugs about this rather and we will take a look.
2. 2.2.2 does contain a lot of other HTML5 fixes. If these issues are still a problem when the beta is live please file bugs for these or give feedback in the beta forum.
3. It's going to be a wait and see on this one - a long-running feature request that right now is just exporting sprites as gifs for easy sharing.
4. Yes, that's our focus first for 2.2.3. We will be taking a look at everything else in the future.
5. No, but it is being revised.
6. We will strike them off when they are done.
7. The 'fallback' is the new permanent solution as far as we are concerned. We have also addressed all of the issues we know about. If there is more I would suggest filing a bug.

Hope this helps! :)
 
L

Lonewolff

Guest
Only crashes I seem to get is when I select 'New IDE' from the file menu. Roughly 50% of the time the new IDE will instantly white screen and crash out.

I often work with two instances of GM open on the same screen, copying bits between projects. It's not a show stopper by any means, just a minor nuisance.
 

JeffJ

Member
Hey all,

We've got our roadmap for GameMaker Studio 2 in 2019 live. It's broad and subject to change much like before. However, moving on the feedback we had from the survey we ran last year: GML improvements are a top priority for us in 2019. 2.2.2 will be going into beta very shortly so we hope you are looking forward to it!

https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/articles/231719448-GMS2-Roadmap

Let me know if you have any questions about the roadmap and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks!
Since it seems other people than just me also wanted some sort of reply to the post I made in the other thread, I'll go ahead and quote it here. I realize that local asset import has already been covered (which is great to see on the roadmap) but that's just one of several items.

Ross, please please also finally find the time to reintroduce some of those most basic things we've been sorely missing ever since GMS2 was introduced, too. It really is the small things in day-to-day operations you feel the most. Proper project search (including ignore comments), multiple file import and local asset package import are among some of the most critical.

Here's a more comprehensive list:
https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.p...oved-over-to-gm2-yet.38689/page-3#post-269035
 

gnysek

Member
Wasn't tvOS in work since 2016 ? A long time to see it... and it's sad that tileset color replacements and todolist are still on "consideration" list, while screenshots for it were for some time in docs (maybe they were only a mockups then?).

I thought that Sequences beta were announced in August, so seeing it as Q4 release seems somebody announced this feature too fast (or it will be a very long beta). Also GML updates for Q4, which may (or may not) contains array/ds enhancements, seems to be very, very distant, while they should be a priority.

I hope that this roadmap lacks at least half of new features, and you gonna surprise us, as the only two alternatives to GMS, seems to be either much harder to learn (but offers full 3D), or lacks of console exporters (but are open-source) - so GMS is still the best option for small indie, but bypassing so many things for so many years (I'm using it since 2003!) hurts.
 
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IGameArt

Member
Do we have any estimates as to when the 2.2.2 beta goes out? I'm currently unable to compile my project with the YYC module because of a bug that has since been fixed in 2.2.2.
 

gnysek

Member
Do we have any estimates as to when the 2.2.2 beta goes out? I'm currently unable to compile my project with the YYC module because of a bug that has since been fixed in 2.2.2.
Usually it gets out when QA founds no critical issues. Each build seems to take 4-5 days to test by QA, so when they found a critical bug, release is delayed by 1-2 weeks, sadly. So giving estimates other than Q1 won't be accurate, but from my observations they already closed list of bugs for this release, so it's only matter of days if there's no critical bug. https://bugs.yoyogames.com/roadmap_page.php - they are already working on 2.2.3 bugs, as you can see.
 

IGameArt

Member
Looking at that roadmap gives me great hope. I'm on a super tight deadline and if QA goes well we can add a YYC compiled version of the project to our release.
 

gnysek

Member
Looking at that roadmap gives me great hope. I'm on a super tight deadline and if QA goes well we can add a YYC compiled version of the project to our release.
Make a ticket in helpdesk, they may give you "individual beta" (the version that QA) if you're lucky.
 

IGameArt

Member
Hopefully the project is high profile enough for them to want to work with us. Lmao. Thanks Gnysek! (just followed you on the carrier raven without realizing it lmao)
 

csanyk

Member
Really looking forward to Sequences and stability fixes, I get 10+ crashes a day.
What is "Sequences" exactly? Are there links to more specifics info on any of the roadmap items?

Thank you for publishing a public roadmap for the product. This is a great help for users of the tool to know what's coming.
 

IGameArt

Member
For those of you unaware, 2.2.2 Beta has been released this morning! Whoop whoop! I'm beyond elated for this release haha
 
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IGameArt

Member
Okay, I'm super upset right now. Why has the ternary operators bugfix been moved to version 2.2.3? Are you really telling me that I have to wait another 3-4 months before I can use the YYC module?! If the bug is already fixed why is it not being pushed out asap? I'm working on an incredibly high profile project. We're not going to be able to get on switch if this ternary operators bug keeps standing in our way.

This issue has been fixed in gitlab since 9th of January. Why is it being pushed back? You'd think that allowing people access to the fix asap would be a priority.
 
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mimusic

Member
Woof, I switched one of the core for-loops in my game to use ++i instead of i++ after reading about this bug, went from ~60fps on my targeted highest-load scenario to ~120fps on YYC. A bit miffed that I didn't know about this sooner, but glad I've at least found it now. By the time 2.2.3 comes out, I'll probably already be used to ++i :p I'll be sure to keep an eye on the error reports from now on...
 
G

Guitarmike

Guest
Am I correct that "sprite connection points" would essentially act like a revolve joint without physics, i.e. the game I'm working on right now has a clown who throws a pie. I would be able to temporarily attach the pie to the clown's hand during the throw animation?
 
J

jva

Guest
Roadmap looks good, very nice to see GML improvements, stability and platform updates. Any plan yet what the GML improvements will be?
 
I

immortalx

Guest
If there is a fix for the i++ bug I think we need to get a fix for that now in 2.2.2 since that affects many projects and aside from that is core functionality to the programming language.
If you mean this it's fixed in 2.2.3 which I guess we'll have to wait for a little bit.
 

Pro_bono

Member
Wasn't sure where to make a feature request, the roadmap thread seems as good a place as any! Would it be possible to add a colour indexing system to GMS2 that can be applied to sprites and maybe other art assets, that can then be changed and manipulated on the fly through code? It's such a big part of the 8 and 16 bit pixel art aesthetic, and just plain super useful with pixel art even if you aren't inspired by old games specifically! I would use it constantly.
 

rIKmAN

Member
Wasn't sure where to make a feature request, the roadmap thread seems as good a place as any! Would it be possible to add a colour indexing system to GMS2 that can be applied to sprites and maybe other art assets, that can then be changed and manipulated on the fly through code? It's such a big part of the 8 and 16 bit pixel art aesthetic, and just plain super useful with pixel art even if you aren't inspired by old games specifically! I would use it constantly.
You can file a suggestion by reporting a bug (Help > Report a Bug in the IDE) and choosing "suggestion" from the dropdown.

For your suggestion, check out the Retro Palette Swapper by Pixelated Pope, it sounds like it might be what you are after.
 

Pro_bono

Member
You can file a suggestion by reporting a bug (Help > Report a Bug in the IDE) and choosing "suggestion" from the dropdown.

For your suggestion, check out the Retro Palette Swapper by Pixelated Pope, it sounds like it might be what you are after.
Thanks for the info and link! I'll submit that. I'd much rather it was built in to GM personally though, I don't like relying on shaders for lots of reasons (I'm not a programmer and don't understand them well, I worry about shaders being supported on the user's machine etc.). It'd just be more accessible and user friendly and more people would be able to get great results!
 
Y

yaragad

Guest
I moved to GM2 recently and Im very satisfied with my decision. Congrats for your product and hope to see it evolving for a long time.
 
I wish the road map was more descriptive too as I don't know most of what the benefits are for the upcoming updates/features.
 
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gnysek

Member
I wish the road map was more descriptive too as I don't know most of what the benefits are for the upcoming updates/features.
- mostly all changes means "game still compile according to latest platform SDK" (mostly android, ios)
- we allow to disable sandboxes on Windows/MacOSX (as I doubt they gonna allow for others - it's probably required by app stores)
- we gonna add sequences (that's a new thing)
- we allow to import resources

so - mostly stability and sequences.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
- we allow to disable sandboxes on Windows/MacOSX (as I doubt they gonna allow for others - it's probably required by app stores)
They should allow it for other exports as well, doing any less is to perpetuate the presumptive "I already know what you want" smart-alec culture at YoYo. On UWP, Ubuntu, iOS and Android, there are genuine use cases for accessing files outside of the sandbox, especially those passed in through the command line or by file selector extensions. You just need to enable the right permissions, and for app stores, have a genuine use case and state so in your submission.

The only place where the sandbox makes any semblance of practical sense is the HTML5 export.
- we allow to import resources
Importing has been possible this whole time, all this does is allowing extension packages to be created without needing to use the YoYo Marketplace as a middleman for every little thing. You can thank Mike for the way it has been in the past 2 years.
 

Hyomoto

Member
The importing thing is a big one. It's been a significant headache for a very long time. Consider the following: you have a code base you like to work with, and you create a new project from it. Now you need to update, change or add a resource. Historically updating the original source, and then implementing them into your active project might as well be impossible for the work involved. The GMS2 importer tool can help in this regard, but overall it's just very, very difficult to maintain a local database of code for import into your projects.

Granted, to do this really well would also require GM to understand the components of an imported extension which I'm not sure it currently does. As far as I know including a resource into your project just makes it a part of the project like any other, but it does support updating resources which is a start.
 

gnysek

Member
OK, I must admit that after this blog post - https://www.yoyogames.com/blog/514/gml-updates-in-2019 - roadmap looks much much better.

It beats any other improvement on roadmap.

The last thing then, that I'm missing is wraping/morphing sprites in room editor, and I have no more wishes (that one is already accepted, can even be found on mantis - but on very low priority sadly).
 
K

Kios

Guest
Import/Export of Local Asset Packages

For 2.2.3

I'm guessing this is in-editor only, but...
Does this mean that we are getting closer to having something like Unity's asset bundles, for easy swapping/importing of assets/code at runtime?
 

gnysek

Member
I can see that 2.3 changed from Q4 to Q1 2020, and in Q4 there's only 2.3 beta, and sequences are now coming for whole year in 3 batches (Q4 19 / Q1 20, Q2 20, Q4 20).

Will all GML updates came in last update this year (probably right before Christmas), or they also be only partial in beta, with rest coming in Jan-March ? I'm really awaiting those changes and can't wait to test them.
 
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