Files
feuerwerk/README.md
T
adminandClaude Opus 5.5 4716726b6b Let a shader move the corners of the picture it wears (#79)
A shader could only say what colour a pixel has. Where the picture
is drawn was fixed to the four corners of its rectangle, so nothing
could wave, bend or wobble.

- The new node Vertex output takes x and y, in pixels of the
  picture, and moves every corner of the wearer's grid by them. The
  UVs stay with the corners, so the picture bends along.
- Subdivisions on that node says how fine the grid is: cells per
  axis, 1 to 64, 8 by default. 1 is the plain quad. A shader without
  the node keeps the quad every sprite shares.
- A graph holds one Vertex output at most. UV, Time, Property,
  Number and the math nodes may feed it, and one node may feed both
  outputs.
- Texture color, Texture alpha, Sample texture, Texture size and
  Color cannot feed it. The node says "Not available per corner"
  and the shader does not compile.
- Sprites, texts and the preview in the shader tab wear the grid.
  A nine-slice sprite and particles draw as if the node were not
  there.
- Picking, the selection frame, the size and colliders stay with
  the rectangle. A wearer with a Vertex output is never culled, as
  with Padding, and with Padding the grid covers the room around
  the picture too.
- tools/perf-shaders.mjs takes GM_PERF_SUBDIVISIONS to measure a
  grid against the plain quad.

Measured on stein2 (Intel HD 630), frames per second, one run per
row: at 800 sprites 58 with a shader on the quad, 46 with 8 cells,
41 with 32. Up to 400 sprites a grid hardly shows. Every sprite
holds its own grid.

Tests:
- Gate on melektaus-atx: 220 files, 3416 tests, CHECK EXIT 0.
- 15 new unit tests for the compiler and the grid.
- Four new e2e checks in modules 28 and 30: a fixed offset moves
  the picture, 8 cells bend only the lower half where 1 cell shears
  it all, Texture alpha is refused at the node, a text moves.
- e2e 28,30 on melektaus-atx: 110 checks, all pass.
- The e2e total of 1699 is counted (1695 + 4), the full suite did
  not run.
- No counter-probe, no screenshot. Not looked at: the preview, Time
  in the browser, flipped sprites, Padding together with the grid.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 00:14:00 +02:00

6.8 KiB
Raw Blame History

Game Maker

A browser-based tool "one step before a game engine": create assets (scenes, cameras, sprites), place them into scenes, tweak their properties in an inspector and press Play – all in one program, all drawn inside a single WebGL canvas.

Live: https://nockal.com/game-maker/ · Widget playground: https://nockal.com/game-maker/?playground

The documentation is the wiki: https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki – every concept, node, tab and shortcut, plus the architecture and the development workflow. This file is the short way in.

In one screen

  • An asset is a named, typed thing (scene, camera, sprite, text, behavior, variables, struct, collider, rigidbody, container, clip area, texture, vector art, pixel art, palette, animation, curve, tile, tilemap, state machine, shader, font, sound, particles) with properties and no position.
  • A scene object places an asset: position, sparse overrides of its properties, an optional parent. Only what differs from the asset is stored; the inspector paints it gold and offers ↺ / ↑.
  • A container is a reusable group edited once and placed many times; its content is resolved from the template on every read. A screen is a container switched on and off.
  • A behavior is logic as a node graph, placed like anything else and parented to the object it acts on. Play has no built-in behaviour – everything that happens is a graph.
  • An account owns projects: the editor asks for a user name and a password first, and each account sees only its own projects. The Account menu at the far right of the toolbar changes the password and signs out.
  • Play runs a throwaway copy of the project; every panel stays usable and Stop brings back exactly what was saved. Release… shares a link that plays the saved game on its own, without the editor and without signing in.

Quick start

Node 22 is required.

npm install
npm run dev          # http://localhost:5175/game-maker/dist/ – API calls are proxied to production
npm run check        # typecheck + lint + format:check + unit tests – the gate CI runs too
npm run build        # writes dist/ and regenerates index.html; the folder is what nginx serves

The browser suite and the three example games need a machine with a GPU:

node tools/seed-e2e.mjs && node tools/e2e.mjs      # the editor, 1699 checks (GM_STEPS=20 for one step)
                                                   #   every tool signs in first – see the Accounts page
node tools/seed-jumprun.mjs && node tools/smoke-jumprun.mjs
node tools/seed-tetris.mjs && node tools/smoke-tetris.mjs
node tools/seed-actor.mjs && node tools/smoke-actor.mjs

Every push runs all of it on the Gitea runner – the gate as one job, build and suite as another beside it – so locally take the gate plus the step your change touches and leave the full run to CI. Details, the GPU requirement and the detached runner are in Development.

Documentation

Page What it covers
Concepts Assets, scene objects, overrides, play mode, the camera, the console
Accounts Signing in and out, the accounts, who a project belongs to, what the check tools need
Scenes The edited scene, the start scene, and switching scenes from a graph
Scene editing Placing, z-order, hierarchy, the editor offset
Behaviors Node graphs: variables, the node set, structs and lists, loops, nesting, editing
Structs Struct assets: a named shape that struct variables, fields and Pack/Expand follow
Colliders Shapes (box, circle, capsule, polygon), collision events, blocking movement, one-way colliders and raycasts
Physics Rigidbodies, the collider material, gravity, the fixed step
Textures Images, frames, nine-slice, the filter, upload limits
Vector art Pictures drawn from shapes: the pen, curves, gradients and texture fills, combining shapes
Pixel art Pictures painted pixel by pixel: the palette, the tools, layers and frames
Fonts Font assets, the picker, what a text falls back to
Sounds Sound assets and Play sound
Animations Animation assets and the Animation tab
Curves Easings drawn by hand, the Curve tab, using one on a key or a Lerp
Shaders Shader graphs a sprite wears, their node set, the properties they declare
Particles Particle graphs: a particle as a function of its age
State machines The asset, named transitions, State branch, Set state and State transition
Containers Templates, instances, screens
Tiles The tile asset, plain tiles and the two autotile kinds, the pictures as animation steps, the Tile tab
Tilemaps The tilemap asset, painting in the scene view, layers, what it looks like in the game
Plugins Extending the editor: the plugin file, how it is loaded, switching one on and off, API v1
Keyboard Every shortcut
Architecture Stack, source layout, the rules that keep it organised
Development Commands, the e2e suite, the example games, CI
API The PHP JSON API and the project document

Ideas, gaps and bugs

They live in the issue tracker: https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/issues. What is not there yet is listed on the wiki's Home page.