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>
95 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
95 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
# Game Maker
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A browser-based tool "one step before a game engine": create **assets** (scenes, cameras,
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sprites), place them into scenes, tweak their properties in an inspector and press **Play** –
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all in one program, all drawn inside a single WebGL canvas.
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Live: <https://nockal.com/game-maker/> · Widget playground: <https://nockal.com/game-maker/?playground>
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**The documentation is the wiki:** <https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki> – every concept,
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node, tab and shortcut, plus the architecture and the development workflow. This file is the short
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way in.
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## In one screen
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- An **asset** is a named, typed thing (scene, camera, sprite, text, behavior, variables, struct,
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collider, rigidbody, container, clip area, texture, vector art, pixel art, palette, animation,
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curve, tile, tilemap, state machine, shader, font, sound, particles) with properties and no
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position.
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- A **scene object** places an asset: position, sparse **overrides** of its properties, an optional
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parent. Only what differs from the asset is stored; the inspector paints it gold and offers ↺ / ↑.
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- A **container** is a reusable group edited once and placed many times; its content is resolved
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from the template on every read. A **screen** is a container switched on and off.
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- A **behavior** is logic as a node graph, placed like anything else and parented to the object it
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acts on. Play has no built-in behaviour – everything that happens is a graph.
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- An **account** owns projects: the editor asks for a user name and a password first, and each
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account sees only its own projects. The Account menu at the far right of the toolbar changes
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the password and signs out.
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- **Play** runs a throwaway copy of the project; every panel stays usable and Stop brings back
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exactly what was saved. **Release…** shares a link that plays the saved game on its own, without
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the editor and without signing in.
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## Quick start
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Node 22 is required.
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```bash
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npm install
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npm run dev # http://localhost:5175/game-maker/dist/ – API calls are proxied to production
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npm run check # typecheck + lint + format:check + unit tests – the gate CI runs too
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npm run build # writes dist/ and regenerates index.html; the folder is what nginx serves
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```
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The browser suite and the three example games need a machine with a GPU:
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```bash
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node tools/seed-e2e.mjs && node tools/e2e.mjs # the editor, 1699 checks (GM_STEPS=20 for one step)
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# every tool signs in first – see the Accounts page
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node tools/seed-jumprun.mjs && node tools/smoke-jumprun.mjs
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node tools/seed-tetris.mjs && node tools/smoke-tetris.mjs
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node tools/seed-actor.mjs && node tools/smoke-actor.mjs
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```
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Every push runs all of it on the Gitea runner – the gate as one job, build and suite as another
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beside it – so locally take the gate plus the step your change touches and leave the full run to
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CI. Details, the GPU requirement and the detached runner are in
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[Development](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Development).
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## Documentation
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| Page | What it covers |
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|---|---|
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| [Concepts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Concepts) | Assets, scene objects, overrides, play mode, the camera, the console |
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| [Accounts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Accounts) | Signing in and out, the accounts, who a project belongs to, what the check tools need |
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| [Scenes](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Scenes) | The edited scene, the start scene, and switching scenes from a graph |
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| [Scene editing](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Scene-editing) | Placing, z-order, hierarchy, the editor offset |
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| [Behaviors](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Behaviors) | Node graphs: variables, the node set, structs and lists, loops, nesting, editing |
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| [Structs](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Structs) | Struct assets: a named shape that struct variables, fields and `Pack`/`Expand` follow |
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| [Colliders](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Colliders) | Shapes (box, circle, capsule, polygon), collision events, blocking movement, one-way colliders and raycasts |
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| [Physics](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Physics) | Rigidbodies, the collider material, gravity, the fixed step |
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| [Textures](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Textures) | Images, frames, nine-slice, the filter, upload limits |
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| [Vector art](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Vector-Art) | Pictures drawn from shapes: the pen, curves, gradients and texture fills, combining shapes |
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| [Pixel art](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Pixel-Art) | Pictures painted pixel by pixel: the palette, the tools, layers and frames |
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| [Fonts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Fonts) | Font assets, the picker, what a text falls back to |
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| [Sounds](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Sounds) | Sound assets and `Play sound` |
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| [Animations](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Animations) | Animation assets and the Animation tab |
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| [Curves](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Curves) | Easings drawn by hand, the Curve tab, using one on a key or a `Lerp` |
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| [Shaders](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Shaders) | Shader graphs a sprite wears, their node set, the properties they declare |
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| [Particles](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Particles) | Particle graphs: a particle as a function of its age |
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| [State machines](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/State-machines) | The asset, named transitions, `State branch`, `Set state` and `State transition` |
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| [Containers](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Containers) | Templates, instances, screens |
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| [Tiles](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Tiles) | The tile asset, plain tiles and the two autotile kinds, the pictures as animation steps, the Tile tab |
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| [Tilemaps](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Tilemaps) | The tilemap asset, painting in the scene view, layers, what it looks like in the game |
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| [Plugins](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Plugins) | Extending the editor: the plugin file, how it is loaded, switching one on and off, API v1 |
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| [Keyboard](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Keyboard) | Every shortcut |
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| [Architecture](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Architecture) | Stack, source layout, the rules that keep it organised |
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| [Development](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Development) | Commands, the e2e suite, the example games, CI |
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| [API](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/API) | The PHP JSON API and the project document |
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## Ideas, gaps and bugs
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They live in the issue tracker: <https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/issues>. What is not
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there yet is listed on the wiki's [Home](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki) page.
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