OFFICIAL Winter Q&A 2021

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rwkay

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
In the spirit of being open and honest we are looking to increase our communication with everyone.

We are kicking this off with an Ask Us (nearly) Anything thread her on the forums, you can ask us questions about GameMaker, YoYo Games, Opera, or GXC (please note that we will not be answering any questions about Lemmings, feel free to ask those on Twitter...).

We will endeavour to answer all of your questions and we are not putting a time limit on how long we will dedicate to responding, we will work through them all as they come up and feel free to post follow up questions if you have them.

Russell
 
D

Deleted member 16767

Guest
Is there a plan to continue the work on gif_open because it seems like the last part on the function does not work. Which is the color you pick to clear the background with. I feel silly asking this since it's primarily a game engine, however, I've seen it used for other things and I am using it for other things too.
 

rwkay

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
Is there a plan to continue the work on gif_open because it seems like the last part on the function does not work. Which is the color you pick to clear the background with. I feel silly asking this since it's primarily a game engine, however, I've seen it used for other things and I am using it for other things too.
File a bug with an example project and we will take a look... Last time I checked it worked but perhaps we have a regression

Russell
 

Sad

Member
Is there any plan to add keybind options to "Convert to Frames" :) Using it a lot to import my stuffs and after hour or so my hand start getting cramp
1636387405718.png
 

Mr Magnus

Viking King
Actually, I have a proper question that I forgot to put in the survey.

What are your plans regarding the sprite editor? The current iteration is bordering on being unusable, to the point I (and many others) try to use it as little as possible. This is not something you want in a software that markets itself to beginners.
 

Cpaz

Member
First off, I'm immediately sold on utilizing NPM for the proposed package manager. It just makes sense.

But I did have a few questions. All technical, I'll leave the other form of questions to users who can probably formulate them better.

1. I might have just misread something or glazed over it, but is this package manager going to tie directly into the marketplace? If so, is the plan to still have the marketplace facilitie paid assets? Is there a clear idea as to how that will work?

2. On "actions" is this the same as the "triggers" on the roadmap? Also, is the TLDR on this basically drag and drop functions?

3. Is there a clear vision on how robust the intellisense will be initially? I can easily say this is my most anticipated feature for GM, having worked with intellij in a professional sense and have yearned for something similar for GM.
 

Ricardo

Member
Is there a plan to add more async functions? In my studio we are specially frustrated about the blocking nature of sprite_add (when loading from disk). Been able to load and decode sprites in a separate thread without blocking the main thread would be a game changer for the kind of games we are currently developing. I've wrote a long explanation about this issue in the Advanced Programming Discussion here.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
2. On "actions" is this the same as the "triggers" on the roadmap? Also, is the TLDR on this basically drag and drop functions?
The way I undestood it, they are more like "virtual inputs". So instead of, say, checking for pressing left key, you check for executing "Left" action, which might be bound to left key, A key, pressing a left arrow with mouse or pressing left on D-pad.

--------------------

Onto the actual questions (sort of repeating what I wrote in the questionnaire posted at the end of this post, but oh well):

1. Could we get a system for seamlessly looping audio between specific looping points? Something more reliable than audio_sound_get/set_track_position which is still dependent on the game thread.
Right now, that's the main game development feature I'm missing in out-of-the-box GameMaker. With arbitrary looping points (also possible to change during runtime) - together with already available audio synchronisation - I should be able to meet all my audio manipulation needs.

2. Are there plans to support arbitrary background tasks (so e.g. I could load and parse files without interrupting the core game loop).

3. As a part of Room Editor improvements, could you please add an option to change the object sprite aside from scale, angle etc. so that the in-editor sprite also changes?
That way we could easily differentiate between different-sprite instances of the same object, which can be useful for e.g. different NPCs sharing same core logic and thus underlying object.
 
Do you ever plan to support better 3d functionality but not necessarily on the level of larger engines such as Unreal or Unity in GMS2 or

maybe you’re holding out on this for the release of Gamemaker studio 3/D which would be cool and would make sense to move perpetual users to subscription in the future as well as justify phasing out GMS2

Would just be nice to have some basic 3d support even though I know this is not the focus of the engine. Just a minimal easy to work with 3d would be nice is all.

Or maybe you’ll have two engines GMS2D and GMS3D for their specific use cases with choice of subscription for one of your choice or perhaps a both?
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
When will tech support (bug reports) start answering faster than half a year?
We have a new process in place for this and all new reports should be getting answered quickly by our CS team while the QA team work through the backlog of more technical issues. This will always depend on how easy the issue is to reproduce and resolve as debugging can take some time.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
What are your plans regarding the sprite editor? The current iteration is bordering on being unusable, to the point I (and many others) try to use it as little as possible. This is not something you want in a software that markets itself to beginners.
We presume that you mean the Image Editor here (?), we have plans put together for a new and improved editor that combines sprite and image editor, and we are looking to address specific concerns that users have raised. If you’ve not let us know about specifics yet then please file a bug/feature request and we will try to accommodate fixes once we release the new editor next year.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
1. I might have just misread something or glazed over it, but is this package manager going to tie directly into the marketplace? If so, is the plan to still have the marketplace facilitie paid assets? Is there a clear idea as to how that will work?
Yes the longer term plan is to have the delivery of marketplace items handled via npm. Yes we will still have paid assets its just delivery that will be via npm. We don’t have any more information about this at this stage but we expect there will be something in the second half of 2022.

2. On "actions" is this the same as the "triggers" on the roadmap? Also, is the TLDR on this basically drag and drop functions?
No these are quite different and no they are not the same as DnD functions. We’ll discuss this further nearer launch.

3. Is there a clear vision on how robust the intellisense will be initially? I can easily say this is my most anticipated feature for GM, having worked with intellij in a professional sense and have yearned for something similar for GM.
We’re not ready to talk about this yet.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
Is there a plan to add more async functions? In my studio we are specially frustrated about the blocking nature of sprite_add (when loading from disk). Been able to load and decode sprites in a separate thread without blocking the main thread would be a game changer for the kind of games we are currently developing. I've wrote a long explanation about this issue in the Advanced Programming Discussion here.
We’re discussing this internally but nothing to announce yet.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
1. Could we get a system for seamlessly looping audio between specific looping points? Something more reliable than audio_sound_get/set_track_position which is still dependent on the game thread.
Right now, that's the main game development feature I'm missing in out-of-the-box GameMaker. With arbitrary looping points (also possible to change during runtime) - together with already available audio synchronisation - I should be able to meet all my audio manipulation needs.
We are looking into improving audio in GameMaker across the board, improving it to a level that will provide as many options as possible. We’ll let everyone know more about this once we are ready to talk about it.
We are looking for an dedicated audio programmer (it doesnt state it yet but it will do soon) so if there are any out there reading this then and are interested in joining us, apply here: https://jobs.opera.com/p/786135f73007-senior-software-engineer

2. Are there plans to support arbitrary background tasks (so e.g. I could load and parse files without interrupting the core game loop).
Not in the current runtime.

3. As a part of Room Editor improvements, could you please add an option to change the object sprite aside from scale, angle etc. so that the in-editor sprite also changes?
That way we could easily differentiate between different-sprite instances of the same object, which can be useful for e.g. different NPCs sharing same core logic and thus underlying object.
This has been discussed as part of the new Room Editor
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
Do you ever plan to support better 3d functionality but not necessarily on the level of larger engines such as Unreal or Unity in GMS2 or

maybe you’re holding out on this for the release of Gamemaker studio 3/D which would be cool and would make sense to move perpetual users to subscription in the future as well as justify phasing out GMS2

Would just be nice to have some basic 3d support even though I know this is not the focus of the engine. Just a minimal easy to work with 3d would be nice is all.

Or maybe you’ll have two engines GMS2D and GMS3D for their specific use cases with choice of subscription for one of your choice or perhaps a both?
3D might be something that we look into in the future but right now we are focusing on 2D.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
Can a Demo of a released game on Steam or a coming soon game be released on GXC?
Yeah we don't have any issues with this, GXC is about having a place where you can easily share the content that you've created
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
I'd like to ask about the GXC... At the moment, it's cool little games portal, but I feel that it could potentially be something VERY big, similar in lines to Kongregate. So, that begs the following questions:

  • Are we getting any monetisation features? Opera already has it's own Ads provider, so it seems a logical fit for the GXC.

  • Are there plans to add the option to get comments on games? The current rating system is okay, but being able to get comments from people would be a big help. Alternatively or as well as, it would be great to have a contact/file a bug button for people to let us know there's an issue. I've been playing a few games on the site and found bugs but there is no way to report them... :(

  • Can we get some metrics support on our games as developers? Being able to see how many people have played the game, the length of time they played (and at what time they played), as well as the challenges they attempted, etc... would be really helpful when it comes to "targeting" releases, updates, and features.

  • In another thread, there was mention of some kind of rewards system (IIRC). Some elaboration on this would be great... like is this going to be in the form of user badges or custom user banners or avatar broders, etc... for different actions? Or "GXC Coins" or anything like that?

  • Will there be a possibility for "GXC Exclusive" games? Would YYG/Opera be willing to entertain the idea of having this kind of exclusive content and possibly pay for it?

This one's for @rwkay:

  • Is the WASM export going to be made available as another general export option for web? Or is it going to remain GXC only? I can imagine that it's less "problematic" as an export and would probably be easier to maintain than the JS/HTML5 target...

Finally, thanks to everyone at YYG/Opera for taking the time to answer these questions... you're all doing excellent work! :)
 
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Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Do you guys plan to keep Game Maker Studio for the next 10 years?
My bet is that GameMaker Studio 3 becomes GameMaker GX and will be "software as a service", so no further numbered versions but just constant updates and improvements, much like photoshop does now (although hopefully with more success than photoshop which has a habit of breaking something every update... :( ).

:bunny:

<<DISCLAIMER! THIS IS MY OWN, PERSONAL OPINION AND PROBABLY BULL**** 😁>>
 
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Dragonite

Member
Triggers used to be part of GameMaker in the old days, but were removed in the move to GMS1.x. What went into the decision to bring them back? If you're allowed to talk about this yet, how will they be different?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how close is my particle editor to being obsolete?

Will the package manager be a part of a larger Marketplace overhaul?

Why is there a "d" in "fridge" but not in "refrigerator?"

How close are we to seeing all of the old data structures functions superseded by struct-based implementations? I remember that's been part of the conversation since 2.3 was announced in 2019

edit: why do yall keep reacting to this with the "laughing" emoji
 
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Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
My bet is that GameMaker Studio 3 becomes GameMaker GX and will be "software as a service", so no further numbered versions but just constant updates and improvements, much like photoshop does now.

:bunny:

<<DISCLAIMER! THIS IS MY OWN, PERSONAL OPINION AND PROBABLY BULL**** 😁>>

Hey, if I can export to Windows on a yearly paid version, I'm in.
 

Bruchpilot

Member
This may a bit of a touchy subject, but it's kind of important to a certain slice of the demographic.

Right now, it seems like (correct me if I'm wrong) that the payment options for the subscriptions must always include a card, and a regular credit card at that. The direct card option (handled by stripe) obviously, but also Google Pay. While you can for example link your Paypal account to Google Pay, the Paypal payment method must be a credit card. No other method seems to work, which is very unfortunate in regions, where credit cards are not a thing or prohibitive for a different reason.

It would be best if 1. Paypal could be used directly and/or
2. Google Pay via Paypal would accept other methods like Paypal balance or direct debit/bank collection.

Do you have any plans or thoughts regarding this?
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
Anything thread her on the forums,
Is the forum female?!
@Nocturne WE NEED ANSWERS!!

Edit: Thread her? I barely know her

here's my serious questions however

1. Do you guys plan to offer more support to 3D? I'm not saying full support with options fanfair and the like, but better capability of loading models and such in that regard?

2. Will the marketplace ever get fixed and able to be uploaded too? (I think this was in the road map) If so any info you could give about that?

3. Any info you can give about up coming opera Jams and such? I hear their was this raccoon that is more then willing to help organize that stuff *wink wink*

4. Probably a really interesting question, What is the end goal of game maker? not like "this is it guys game maker is no more!" but like, the best possible future goal of game maker studio as an ide?

Really interested in the responses to these, Thanks :)

Edit:
OH OH OH

5. Compute shaders, eta?
 
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Any plans for this? layer_sequence_destroy(seq_resource) // Destroys all sequences in the room of that resource type.

Will objects inside sequences get creation code and variables like the room editor?

Is live coding coming?

Will Spine get multiple bounding box support?

Is there going to be an all layer, or general layer, for the room editor?
 

gnysek

Member
Are there plans for any improvements to two decade old features like: paths (adding bezier paths maybe?), motion planning (new settings, using structs?), grid pathfinding (also more settings, or ability to attach custom functions)? Will be there an option to define sprite fonts without using font_add_sprite, but from IDE (so each glyph can be adjusted)?

From new features, are there plans for something like adding markers/named points in room editor (or even areas), so their coordinates can be read at runtime (for example to spawn enemies, defining node graphs, or to define npc possible routes), or at least option to get instance x/y while we're in different room? Or option to define shapes for collisions in room editor, so we don't need to use sprites to define some boundaries, or use that data same as in previous part of this long question?
Are there any plans for morphing/skewing/distorting sprites (there's support for morphing in Spine sprites probably, if it cannot be re-used for it, then at leat something like with draw_sprite_pos, but for room editor)?

Is moving away from id-numbered data structures in favour of referenced ones (stacks, lists, maps, grids) which will be automatically garbage collected still on roadmap?

Edit: we already asked for so many features that it could fill 2 years of roadmap (or even 4y in pre-Opera period) :p
 
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Kezarus

Endless Game Maker
4. Probably a really interesting question, What is the end goal of game maker? not like "this is it guys game maker is no more!" but like, the best possible future goal of game maker studio as an ide?
I hope it would be: the best and fastest 2D game engine EVER!! XD
 

kraifpatrik

(edited)
GameMaker Dev.
EDIT: Oops, I've already posted it by mistake. I would like to add some more questions 😅

1. Could there possibly be some changes to the shader resources? E.g. I would love to be able to create a single vertex shader and reuse it between different pixel shaders. Or write a single uber shader and compile it multiple times with different #defines.

2. I would love to see macros with arguments in GML, it would have some extremely convenient uses. Any plans on this one?

3. Any chance that we could ever program (aside from extensions) in C++ (or generally something more performant than GML) in GM?

4. Could you please hit me up if you ever start focusing on 3D in GM? I would be down for the job 🤣
 
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