[50% OFF SALE] PlayMaker - Visual Scripting for Unity

No, I'm afraid the newer kits won't work with 3.5. As I was using Android Free coming with 4.2 to build the mobile version. Also, the upgraded version of the older kit won't work. The older version will work with 3.5 and you can find older version in my forums.

That being said, it's all about learning the tricks and mechanics. So, you can install Unity 4.2 to get to know the techniques and go back to 3.5 to implement them. Nothing was used till now that won't work with 3.5.

But the kit in progress, the FPS kit will have mecanim actions. So, 3.5 will be irrelevant for the animation controller part.

 

alex, your phone 8 beta lib looks working. when will you release it?

 

alex, can you confirm this; playmaker is not compatible with phone 8 and windows store apps. i have to buy 2 addons for this; 2 x $10.

 

The Windows Phone 8 add-on is already released. Do you mean Windows 8 Store? We will release that soon...

 

Correct. Those platforms require different versions of the Playmaker dlls available as add-ons.

 

price is ok but is there any way to use single set of dll's? i do not want to replace dll's for each build.

 

Unfortunately it's not possible, the platforms require different #defines that are precompiled in the dlls. You could use a build script to import the correct unitypackage for each platform...

 

Alex, in the past you said you will release source code of playmaker. did you quit this idea? if product were with source code it would easy and free to integrate it with other platforms like phone and windows

can i use phone 8 dll's with other platforms like android, ios, webplayer? is there any restriction like performance?

 

We haven't made any final decisions on a source code license yet...

The main thing stripped from the windows phone 8 dlls is networking, since its not supported yet. I guess you could theoretically use the wp8 dlls on other platforms if you don't use networking... I'd need to do investigate some more to know for sure...

Hopefully in the future there will be less exceptions for each platform and we can combine them again in Playmaker...

 

Check out MicroNoid 2 HD, made with Playmaker:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a3dstudio.micronoid2free



And other cool games made by A3D-Studio:
http://a3ds.wordpress.com/

 

I wanted to give a shout out to all the users who may need an Audio Manager plugin (or aren't thrilled with the one they've got). Our flagship plugin Master Audio now has 31 custom actions encompassing the entire functionality of the plugin, which is pretty advanced at this point. So now you have more choices for this category of plugin even still keeping everything in Playmaker

Video and information can be found here! Yes, there's a free trial version as well.

I got into Playmaker to support my users who were asking for it, but now I think I'll use it myself! Very impressive product!

 

Thanks jerotas!


Master Audio looks great! I've added a link to it in our Add-Ons wiki:
https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W714

 

Just imported playmeker in a fresh project and get this error from the latest version of playmaker i just get from the store as an update:

Assets/PlayMaker/Actions/CallMethod.cs(88,31): error CS1061: Type `HutongGames.PlayMaker.FsmVar' does not contain a definition for `UpdateValue' and no extension method `UpdateValue' of type `HutongGames.PlayMaker.FsmVar' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Can you help?

Hmm, tied a second time with another new project and this time it has no error !?

So it works

 

Hi Alex,

Purchased your asset and went through the tutorials... this is pretty awesome!

Two questions for you though:

1. On a fresh project, when simply changing the Color Space in PlayerSettings from Gamma to Linear, the "Graph View" in Playmaker turns black on the default or dark background settings. This makes it very difficult to see the states or links. If I switch it to light background while in linear space, it is still darker than the light background in gamma space, which still makes it slightly difficult to see. This happens even after restarting Unity. Is this by design or is there something else happening on my side? All the other windows in Playmaker are fine and don't change.

2. How do you do conditional AND or OR checks? I see under "logic" you have int float and string compare, but I'm not sure how to do something like:

if (a < 5 b > 10)

or

(i < 5 || i > 10)

for example? Thanks!

 

Sounds like the dlls hadn't updated the first time. Restarting unity normally fixes this...

 

1. This is not by design. I'll see if I can repro here...

2. For an OR you just add multiple logic actions. The first one to evaluate true will execute. For an AND you can either break the test down into parts, store intermediate results in bool variables and then do Bool All True, or you can split the test across multiple states (think about how you would break the test down into a flow chart). Note, multiple states can execute in a single update.

We're working on a conditional expression action that will simplify these kinds of tests. You will just be able to write the expression and send true/false events

 

Thank you for the prompt reply and clear explanation. Will do it the way you suggested until your new conditional expression actions are added!

Thanks for looking into this.

 

Found the problem. There's a Linear setting in the Texture2D constructor that's not really documented, but it seems to fix this issue. Will submit an update today...

 

phone 8 add on is now $20, it was $10? this is why i hate no source code projects. i have no change to correct new platform build errors and i have to buy all additional parts.because there is no alternative of playmaker you can change prices i think you got good money from playmaker because it is very fundamental asset for unity and i think every unity user must own it. i would expect platform compatibility addons free. 10$ was ok but $20 is high for this.i have the same problem with easyroads pro. it is not windows app, phone 8 compatible. there is no source code. i seriously think not to buy non source code projects anymore.

 

The Add-Ons were always $20 - they were on 50% sale for Unite. Sorry I didn't make that clearer in the previous post, but the icon and description both said they were on sale...

Normally if you just miss a sale, you can email us and we'll give you the sale price anyway on our store.

 

Alex, price is not the only problem. i work for multiplatforms. if i use non source code asset generally i have problems with building and at runtime. also i work with beta versions of unity. i cannot solve dll problems because they are blackbox. i waste time to find problems like i did for playmaker's string format action. because i cannot see source code to understand the problem i have to write many test code and debug it. with source code it would be faster.

playmaker price range was very wide [ $18 - $90 ]. source code version would worth money.

in the past (maybe 1 years ago) you said you will release playmaker with source code, so i went on with playmaker. as unity adding more platforms i face more problems on assets that has no source code. this is because asset owner cannot place platform defines to their code like "#if UNITY_IPHONE" when publishing dll files. i have to use platform dependent solutions and build scripts.

so i decided to write my simple state machine. it will simple and less featured but it will be mine, and i can change it whenever i want you could have a spaceship but if you can't use it to go to your work from your home it is useless.

also there are many one man supported assets in asset store. i do not know how many people support playmaker, but it is risk to use no source code assets that if you die or quit support playmaker.we can nothing to do for additional platforms, future unity releases like 4.3 and bugs like string format.

i dislike to quit playmaker because it has many good features but source code restriction cause me to do this.

 

Hi Alex,

Did the update that fixes the linear lighting problem get approved yet? It says the latest update is Sept. 19, but the version number is the same and the problem still exists in the Sept. 19 version.

Also, I noticed earlier in the thread that you had a watermark feature where you can choose the visual watermark. Where do you change that for the fsm?

Thanks!

 

Nevermind about the watermark, I just saw it in the right-click menu. Just created my first custom action using the wizard. Really cool tool you have here!

Still waiting on that linear lighting fix, hopefully it gets approved soon.

 

The linear lighting fix should be in the store Monday!

 

Hey Alex,

I was seeing an issue with PlayMaker where the LevelLoad action would load the level twice, causing OnLevelWasLoaded functions in other scripts to call twice in a frame. This causes some issues for me. Can you look into this?

-ALB

 

Hi ALB,

I looked into this, but wasn't able to repro OnLevelWasLoaded being called twice. I built a test project with the LevelLoad action and a simple behavior that logged OnLevelWasLoaded and it was only triggered once... Are you sure the calls aren't in 2 behaviours? Can you email me a small project that shows the problem?

Cheers,
Alex

 

Hi Alex,

i am back do you plan to release ngui v3.0 actions?

 

Hi I just took a look at ngui 3.0 - it looks like a very big update with a lot of changes, but we definitely want to support it. Will need to investigate how long it will take...

 

Sure, I'll email you this weekend (having a hectic friday)

P.S.- this is on singleton objects that persist between scenes if that makes any difference.

-ALB

 

Check out Beyond Eyes, an absolutely beautiful game being made with Playmaker:

[video=youtube;bbm2PaSemVk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bbm2PaSemVk

Indiegogo campaign:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/beyond-eyes

 

Has this been fixed? I too would prefer not to keep PlayMaker at the root level, and this error is annoying to see all the time in the log:

Missing watermark texture: Assets/PlayMaker/Editor/Watermarks/playMakerLogo.png

 

Yeah, this was fixed a long time ago... what version are you using?

 

Hi Alex, I think I forgot to post on this thread that our Killer Waves plugin now has 6 Playmaker custom actions. Could you add this to the list of supported plugins?

Killer waves is "The Ultimate Spawn Toolkit" with advanced wave generation, automatic spawning / despawning behaviors, no code hit point destruction, world variables and much much more!
Here's a link to the videos:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/167910-Brand-new-Killer-Waves-(wave-spawning-plugin)-demo-video-up!

 

Looks very cool! I've added a link to the Add-Ons page:
https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W714

 

Thankyouthankyouthankyou for this answer (to the poster with the "CallMethod.cs(88,31): error CS1061" problem). I imported a Playmaker project into a newer version of Unity and got this error. Was totally at a loss there for a while.

 

Yeah, sometimes you have to restart Unity when it gets in a bad state! It's normally the first thing I try if Unity is acting up...

 

Hi,

Ngui 3.x playmaker custom action package is now available on the wiki

https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W1111

I removed obsolete custom actions and redid the various samples to match the new Ngui way of working.

WARNING: if you plan on upgrading an existing Ngui 2.x project, BACKUP BEFORE, and depending on what you did, you may be better of sticking with 2.x, but that's already on a per case bases.

Bye,

Jean

 

thanks for new ngui 3 actions.

i get following error with ngui 3.0.3

Assets/PlayMaker NGUI/Actions/Tools/NguiToolsEncodeColor.cs(36,55): error CS0117: `NGUITools' does not contain a definition for `EncodeColor'

 

Hi,

Thanks for spotting this, I have updated the package to work with Ngui 3.03, you can redownload from the wiki: https://hutonggames.fogbugz.com/default.asp?W1111

It should not have give you an error tho, it's been indeed marked as obsolete because that function moved to another class, but you should only get a warning.

Bye,

Jean

 

Hi Everyone,

I will attend a Game Jam in Viborg, Denmark, where I will present PlayMaker on the first day and then assist developers during the entire week end to help everyone in the process, share tips and tricks on all aspect of Unity/PlayMaker Development and answer all of your questions.

http://indiejam.dk/indietaw-nov13/

So for anyone interested, make sure you apply. It's free if you simply want to be there, or you can participate to the game Jam and submit your game at the end of the week end.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me via pm or contact the organizing crew at

http://indiejam.dk/kontakt-os/

Important note: If you want to use PlayMaker but don't have a license, trials will be distributed for the game Jam and workshop participants.

Looking forward to this!

Bye,

Jean

 

Quick general question about PlayMaker. I read somewhere in the documentation that it only supports one state at a time. In other words, if I have two nodes that take different events, can they both be triggered independently of each other in the same FSM?

I'm wondering if I can use PlayMaker to keep track of a handful of things in my scene at the same time.

 

PlayMaker uses Finite State Machines (FSMs) to organize behaviors. Only one state can be active at a time in an FSM, but you can execute multiple states in a frame and each GameObject can have multiple FSMs that talk to each other with events - so that gives you a lot of flexibility! I've found FSMs to be a very intuitive way to break complex behaviors down into manageable parts. E.g., If you can break behaviors down into flowcharts you can build them in PlayMaker.

For complex logic, think of the FSM as a flowchart, with each state being a single step in the algorithm - you can run the whole flowchart every frame, like running every line of code in a script. States are very flexible. They can represent a single step in an algorithm, higher level AI behaviors, UI modes, user input, etc. And you can nest FSMs, so a state can have its own FSM!

If you have a concrete example we can work through it together on the PlayMaker forums - we have a great user community

BTW, I love your mission statement! Great blog too

 

So here's the issue my dev partner run into time and time again. The component design pattern is awesome for getting started. But what happens is that you soon get a bunch of spaghetti, with your functionality spread across a bunch of different objects. Our conclusion is that this fact isn't necessarily all that bad, because you have all these benefits that come with that, right? Flexibility, modularity, and so on. NGUI proves that well.

What you need, instead of redesigning to avoid the spaghetti, is find a good way to visualize it. You need a way to visualize multiple states of multiple objects, all at once. To me, that's what makes PlayMaker, uScript, Spaghetti Machine, etc. really useful. Because in the middle of your game, you'll have this object that disappears, and you want to know which of the 10 different things that makes objects disappear made this object disappear at this time. Visual debugging can show you this intuitively.

But by only supporting finite state machines (instead of both finite and multi-state machines), you're going back toward that spaghetti direction I mentioned earlier. You'll either have to track your states in multiple objects, or go through your machine multiple times in a frame. In both cases, you can't really see what's going on.

And thank you I haven't really blogged about TDC on my own site, but it's a great example of what that kind of game looks like.

 

Interesting argument. Personally I think spaghetti code is less likely with an FSM! I initially developed Playmaker for internal use partly to combat spaghetti code, letting you quickly author clearly organized behaviors instead of ad-hoc accumulations of prototype code. But I also think it's a separate issue - you can create spaghetti code in any language/editor ever created!

But I totally agree about visual debugging. We have a feature called Debug Flow that lets you pause the game and then step back in time through states, looking at events and variables so you can really see what happened:

[video=youtube_share;eKgNTqa56aQ]http://youtu.be/eKgNTqa56aQ

Again personally I find the state breakdown very intuitive when stepping through the log, instead of trying to track multiple nodes turning on/off all over the graph - that to me feels more "spaghetti-like"

Every organizing principle has its pros and cons. In my experience, FSMs offer a good balance of structure and flexibility, and are intuitive for non-programmers and programmers alike. Working with artists and designers in multi-disciplinary teams FSMs seem to offer the kind of structure you need to go beyond turning lights on and off, or opening and closing doors; a clear way to break complex behaviours into simpler parts, so you can really start "coding"

 

Oh, that is very cool!! That would actually allow you to see multiple things happening in the same frame. I like that

Yeah I do think less spaghetti is a good thing, but at some point you just have to get stuff done, and the component design pattern that's the natural Unity way, which again NGUI implements really well, is flexible and modular, even though it promotes some degree of spaghetti-ness. And yes I agree FSMs do help combat that.

So one thing we had trouble with using PlayMaker was that it didn't seem to support creating prefabs very well. We wanted to be able to have multiple people working on the scene at once, with different objects being prefabs so someone could just save changes on their prefab without having to save the scene. I kept getting hung up on PlayMaker's dialogs regarding prefabs. How does that work? Does it support one person working on an FSM in a prefab and saving just that prefab without saving the scene? Would another person be able to load that updated prefab and have all its references maintained?

 

Totally just bought this plugin impulsivley without watching any tutorials or anything... I just had to with the current discount lol.

Looking forward to messing with this and hoping that it will improve my projects' extendability and design

 

The prefab workflow you describe should be supported. What PlayMaker dialogs were you getting hung up on?

 

Cool! Thanks for buying Playmaker! Make sure to join the Playmaker Forums - we have a great user community

 

Check out this installation in New York that used Unity and Playmaker:

 

Today is the last day of the Asset Store Birthday Bonanza sale!!
Grab Playmaker at 65% Off!