Hey!

The CraftStudio free Premium week-end once again returns in celebration of the Global Game Jam 2014.

If you want to try your hand at making games, now is your chance. Head over to craftstud.io, create an account and you’ll get access to all features of CraftStudio, the cooperative game-making platform for the next 5 days.

You’ll find tutorials & references at learn.craftstud.io. Also check out this awesome video tutorial playlist by Adam Clarke.

Have fun!

Hi! I just released client 1.2.11, runtime 1.6.0 and server 1.1.5 with the following changes:

• Improved TextArea rendering performances (affects script editor, server manager log)
• Improved network performance by pre-allocating message buffers whenever possible (affects client, server & runtime)
• Runtime: Don’t crash when sending a remote message with no recipients, just ignore
• Fixed highlighting of Vector3 in the script editor
• Made Map.LoadFromPackage asynchronous (the function’s parameters and return value changed but it’s backwards compatible)
• Localized “Blacklist” and “Approve” buttons in Admin tab
• Fixed error message when setting up a  network sync twice
• Updated German localization (thanks sk2k!)

Welcome to all the new CraftStudians joining us for the free week-end!

I just pushed some updates with the following changes:

Web runtime 1.2 & 1.2.1

• Implemented text rendering support!
• Implemented asset texture cache for better memory usage
• Implemented CS.Audio.SetMasterVolume / CS.Audio.GetMasterVolume
• Implemented a bunch of visual scripting blocks that were previously missing
• Fixed Transform:SetLocalOrientation, Transform:RotateGlobal and Transform:RotateLocalEulerAngles
• Fixed a map renderer chunk update bug introduced in the last update
• Fixed CS.Input.UnlockMouse to actually unlock the mouse
• (1.2.1) Assets are now downloaded in parallel for shorter load times

Runtime 1.3.6

• Fixed TextRenderer setup when no font was set
• Update TextRenderer bounding volume before casting a ray on it
• Improved performance when marking map chunks as dirty (e.g. after a call to Map:SetBlockAt)
• Implement dynamic map physics shape update (finally!)

Client 1.2.9

• Avoid crashing when a sound effect couldn’t be loaded for some reason

This morning I released an update to the CraftStudio Web player adding sound support and fixing various other stuff. You can start CraftStudio to get the latest version and read more about the update. This isn’t the main subject of this blog post though!

Have you found yourself wishing a particular feature was available in CraftStudio?

For instance, maybe you’d like to make HTTP requests to download some dynamic data to display in your game or integrate with some Web API.

Sadly, there’s no HTTP request API currently in CraftStudio (this is something that I intend to address at some point). Well I’ve got good news: if you’ve got some Web development chops then instead of waiting for me to get there, you can expose your own functions in the CraftStudio Web player!

Continue reading →

Here comes another update!

Client

• You can now paste images in textures (with Ctrl+V) after copying them from your file browser. No need to use an external program anymore!
• The embedded color management info (if any) will now be used when pasting an image
• On Windows, the window will now flash in the taskbar when you receive a message from a friend
• Updated the wiki button to point to the new wiki

Runtime

• Vector3.Transform has been renamed to Vector3.Rotate to be more descriptive (the old function name still works)
• Fixed TextRenderer:GetFont() to return nil (thanks @FlorentPoujol)
• Fixed TextRenderer:GetTextWidth( string ) to return the proper value (it always returned zero)

Hi you!

Here’s a new minor update featuring:

• New visual scripting blocks for Text Renderer components
• New CS.Network.MessageSide.Any value for registering message handlers which can be called both by players and the server
• New Map.EmptyBlockID constant for identifying an empty map block (no need to use 255 anymore!)

Enjoy!