[RELEASED] Rex Engine: A Unity 2D Platformer Engine

@BeeZee

How to destroy an enemy permanently ? Already added the component object disabler script, but the enemy keeps on spawning back when the player return to the scene.

Also, any chance we be seeing a tutorial on combo attack tutorial? Been waiting for this since I got a copy of Rex. Really need it to add this to my game.

 

Ah, ObjectDisabler isn't set up for use with enemies yet, but that's a good idea! I can add it to the next version, which I should be submitting around Monday.

In the meantime, with some very minor scripting, you can make it work by calling MarkForDisable() on it. So in your enemy script, when it dies, you can call something like: GetComponent<ObjectDisabler>().MarkForDisable().

I'll aim to have the melee combo video up next week, as well.

 

This is awesome! I love the cutout-looking art style. Can you PM me some info on the project and I can put it on the official Rex site?

 

It did work, but with enemies with out the component object disabler script, a nullreference error shows up in the console. Ok, I'll just wait for next update. I want the option to respawn and permanently destroy enemies. Thanks.

 

DAMMIT! That looks sooo similar to what I'm doing

Back to the drawing board

 

Oh, yeah, you've gotta add ObjectDisabler to the enemy.

 

@BeeZee

How do I get rid of this Message in the console

Coroutine 'TurnCoroutine' couldn't be started because the the game object 'Controller' is inactive!
UnityEngine.MonoBehaviour:StartCoroutine(String)
RexEngine.RexController:Turn() (at Assets/RexEngine/Scripts/RexEngine/_Abstracts/RexController.cs:483)
RexEngine.RexController:FaceDirection(Horizontal) (at Assets/RexEngine/Scripts/RexEngine/_Abstracts/RexController.cs:457)
RexEngine.<MovePlayerToSpawnPointCoroutine>c__Iterator0:MoveNext() (at Assets/RexEngine/Scripts/RexEngine/_Managers/RexSceneManager.cs:201)

I'm trying to move the player to the title menu by colliding to a gameobject. The text only shows up when the player collide with the game object facing left, but when It collide it facing right the console is clear, no problem.

 

When Unity throws warnings about Coroutines not being able to start, it usually means that a script is trying to run a Coroutine on a timer, and that the GameObject became inactive prior to the timer letting that bit of code execute. In this context, the Player has a Coroutine called "TurnCoroutine" which handles animating them as they turn left-to-right or right-to-left; basically, it plays their Turning animation, waits until that animation is complete, and then flips the sprite. What's happening here is probably that the player is playing their turn animation, and then becoming inactive for a moment while they load into the menu scene, and then while they're still inactive, the turn animation timer completes and it tries to execute the bit of code that flips their sprite.

This shouldn't actually hurt anything -- it's just a warning Unity puts up to let you know that the object was inactive when the Coroutine finished, but it happens a lot with Unity coroutines there aren't any negative repercussions for it.

Warning message aside, is it still properly loading you into the menu?

 

Yah, it's properly loading into the menu, the usual title menu with many gameobjects disabled including the player. thanks again.

 

Here's a tutorial on setting up melee combos!

 

Sweet! thank you very much

 

@BeeZee

I got this question about what codes to use to check for the Player's number of lives and energy(hp) as well as the enemy?

Another one, in the combo tutorial, I see this Energy Cost in the inspector attack script, what exactly is it's function as I can simply think of it, if it's set to 0 then this melee attack type will not be executed.

 

Oh, yeah, I debated going over Energy Cost but I worried the tutorial was already getting too long. Energy Cost is optional, and it's used to make it so the attack expends resources. Think of it like Mega Man, where you have secondary attacks that use some amount of your Weapon Meter to execute, and once the weapon meter is empty, you need to refill it before you can do that attack again.

I just checked the Lives thing, and oddly, there's no code right now to get how many lives you have currently. Thanks for pointing that out -- it's an oversight on my part and I'll include it in the next update.

You can get the Player's energy (or an enemy's) by checking:

Code (CSharp):

1. GameManager.Instance.player.hp.current

It'd be the same for an enemy, but you'd use a reference to the enemy in place of GameManager.Instance.player.

 

Thanks man, kindly include a brief demo explanation of how Energy Cost work in your next tutorial, as I was expecting it that you'll be including it in the combo tutorial.

 

Rex Engine v 1.21 is out!

This is a fairly important (and much-requested) update. Starting with 1.21, any custom settings you put into the Rex Settings window will be fully retained after you do future updates to Rex Engine (whereas the update process used to wipe them out before).

This is achieved by creating a "RexEngineSettings" asset file in the Assets folder of your project. Please don't delete, rename, or move this file, as it could cause Rex Engine to lose track of your settings.

Also, please note that, for the time being, this only applies to the settings you put in the Rex Settings panel. I'm working on ways to save other stuff, and I hope to have those to you in future updates.

Lastly, although you can technically edit settings directly in the new RexEngineSettings asset file's Inspector, please note that the "proper" way to do this is still via the Rex Settings panel.

Enjoy!

 

@BeeZee

What is the key input in the demo scene to do the wall climb?

 

If Wall Cling State is enabled, it should just be up/down on the wall. Wall Cling State has a bunch of settings, which encompass wall jumps, sliding down a wall, climbing, ledge grabbing, and more. One of them is for whether or not Climbing is enabled, as well as the Climb Speed, so I'd check those two; you'll want to make sure Climb Speed is greater than 0.

 

@BeeZee

Got the wall ability working now, thanks man.

Quick question, is there a setting to add a thrust or forward movement when doing a melee attack?

 

Not out-of-the-box, but I whipped this up for someone else who asked the same question a while ago. This goes in Attack.cs (or you can override that to prevent it from being lost when you update Rex Engine):

Code (CSharp):

1. protected IEnumerator MoveBackCoroutine()
2.         {
3.             int totalFrames = 12;
4.             int currentFrame = 0;
5.  
6.             while(currentFrame < totalFrames)
7.             {
8.                 float moveSpeed = 2.5f;
9.                 slots.actor.slots.physicsObject.MoveX(moveSpeed * (int)slots.actor.slots.controller.direction.horizontal);
10.  
11.                 currentFrame ++;
12.  
13.                 yield return new WaitForFixedUpdate();
14.             }
15.         }

Then, on line 245 of Attack.cs, do:

Code (CSharp):

1. StartCoroutine("MoveBackCoroutine");

You can change totalFrames and moveSpeed there to move yourself in other directions.

 

Here's a video on projectiles, including setting up stuff like Mario's Fire Flower or the boomerang or axe from Castlevania!

 

Thank you so much man for providing this info, the thrust works great.

Awesome tutorial about projectile, I was about to ask on how to make the projectile move like a boomerang. Luckily you uploaded this tutorial. Tutorials are really a big help to know more about Rex's amazing features. Really appreciate it so much.

One last thing, please retain the resolution size of your tutorial same as this, as it is much better than the earlier one that are so hard look at because of the high screen resolution with only 720 video resolution would have been great with 1080. the fonts are so tiny and blurry. this one is OK even at 720.

 

Oh, cool, thanks for the feedback. I'll keep doing the filming on my smaller screen, then.

 

@BeeZee

I'm already starting to slot in some animation, the walk, jump, attack are all working, but I stumbled upon a problem in the crouch state after slotting it in, the animation doesn't work properly, it tries to play the jump animation at the same time when pressing down control, but I was able to fix it , with some lucky guess settings to the collider offset of the crouch. I don't know if I'm missing something, but in the scene window, the collider of the crouch is not visible or is the box collider component in the controller above Rex controller is the same box collider that is being used in the crouch. I'm not quite sure if it's the same box collider as they have different value sizes. How can I view the collider box of the crouch to know exactly how big it is, so I can properly set the box size to the character?

 

So the way the Crouch collider works is: it's not actually a separate collider, but it resizes the existing BoxCollider2D the player has on their root GameObject to whatever size is set in CrouchState's Collider Size properties. The Offset -- particularly the Y offset -- will need to be adjusted so that the bottom of the new collider rests on the ground at the same height as where the bottom of the collider was before.

For example, the default Player has a collider height of 1.83. His crouching collider height is 0.9. The offset is -0.47, although it should probably be -0.465, because: 1.83 - 0.9 = 0.93, which divided by 2 is -0.465.

 

I see, so this means that crouch offset colliders should always be manually set for new characters, I came up with the positive value offset because the negative doesn't look good on the screen when the player is on the crouch state, the feet are kinda mis aligned from the ground -- from standing to crouch, so I have to play around with the settings to get it right. I'll be doing some adjustments now based on your explanation, thanks again.

 

I'd try setting the position of your SpriteRenderer in your Crouching animation. The collider itself is always going to need to be positioned on the ground for the physics to work, but you should have free reign over positioning the sprite itself (this is one of the reasons the SpriteRenderer is nested so deep in the Player object, as well -- it's so you can adjust visuals independently of physics.)

 

hello i am having trouble spawn point does not come up i follow yours
Quick Start Guide It is included in the hierarchy but can not mark it in scene view and the spirits not there either
even when I load one of your finished scenes

 

@krillba You can only edit those Gizmos while the Rex Level Editor is open. Go to Window>Rex Engine>Rex Level Editor, and while the Rex Level Editor window is open, you can change the PlayerSpawnPoint and SceneBoundary objects in the hierarchy. They're locked otherwise.

 

Thank you for fielding this!

 

@BeeZee

I guess there's a bug in the crouch collision.
When in the crouch move state, moving under an enemy object, same as if an enemy object is moving above the player, why is it that it still collides with the enemy objects, but when on crouch idle state under the enemy objects no collision occurs but you have to take in damage first then position it immediately under the enemy object, while invincibility damage is still in effect for the player?

 

Looks like a bug. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! I'll investigate it.

 

@BeeZee

Kindly add these in your investigation,

1. Audio clip in Moving State (script) for walking only play ones then stops, even while moving, you have to stop and move or walk again to play the move audio clip. It doesn't loop while moving.

Also is it possible to adjust the volume of clips in the inspector?

2. Jump attack seems like it's looping sometimes and sometimes not. Even if I already deactivated the loop "Loop time" in the inspector of the animation and Require fresh button press ticked.

3. What is the proper way of adding a melee animations in the melee animator controllers for each melee attack. As I've seen in your animation tutorial you usually add and create an animation clip in the player parent game object(selected), if I don't drag the new melee animation created in the player parent game object to the melee controller animation window it will not play the newly created melee animations. and this is what it shows on the animation window when I click on the attack melee child game objects.



Although everything seems to be working fine, I don't see any warning message in the console. Will it hurt my project in the long run if I leave it alone like this?

I tried creating a new animation in the attack melee directory, when on play mode the melee animation is being spawned and played approximately 30 pixel to the right and the size is a bit smaller.



4. Is it possible to adjust the size of the hit box when doing the Jump attack, I noticed it's following the size of the melee's parent hit box which does not match the hit box area for the melee weapon for jump attack, would be nice to be able to adjust the hit box same as adjusting the size and offset hit box for the crouch.

 

Hello, i'm going to buy this engine, i find it really amazing =D, but i have some questions:

-- I will create a metroidvania game, is it posible with the engine ?

-- can i add animations to the ability unlocker in the engine ? i.e when gaining a new ability.

-- Does it has a save system ? i played the demo and watched the videos on youtube, and i saw only checkpoints, but idk if it really can save the progress in a save room like in any metroid game.

-- Does it has a multidirectional animations ? i.e, i have a character that has 2 different sides and i want to show each side depending if it's looking to the right or to the left, i don't want to just flip the sprite.

-- Does it has a glide ability ?

Thanks in advance for the help =D

 

Hi, I saw a couple of the Rex Engine tutorial videos and really like them.

However my concern is it seems that many of the mechanics rely on game frame rather than on game time. So if I have a combo attack with 12 frames delay interval, a game running at 120 fps will be able to attack twice as fast as one running at 60 fps in real time.

This also makes the attack inconsistent with respect to time which is visible in the projectile tutorial video where the projectiles do not shoot at a constant interval likely due to the fluctuation of fps.

So my question is: will I be able to implement time-based over the frame-based delays easily? Or if it's actually there but I've missed it. Thanks!

 

Heya all,

Just got back from my honeymoon, so I'm back at it! I'll be getting to everyone's questions over the course of the day.

1. The attached Audio Clip slot for every Rex State is designed to play once at the start of the state right now -- think of it as a "transitioning to this state" sound. I do have plans to eventually incorporate a footstep sound, or something meant to be looped along those lines, in an update, though.

2. I've been doing some tests on my end, and I'm not seeing any jump attacks loop. I'd definitely double-check that the AnimationClip itself isn't set up to loop, and I might also uncheck "Will Sync Move Animation" on the Attack itself -- the last one is designed to sync an attack animation with a Walking animation, so it *probably* won't affect jumping, but it might help just to be safe, since it influences what frame an animation starts on.

3. Unity's Animator is really finicky, which is probably the biggest grievance I've got with Unity as a whole at the moment (as much as I love them for the most part.) What it looks like is happening: in the screenshot you posted of your Animator window, you have a whole ton of stuff it's trying to animate which shouldn't be there: stuff like the Combo Chain (Script) shouldn't show up in the Animator window at all, andthat yellow Sprite (Missing) message you're getting indicates that your AnimationClip is *trying* to animate on a Sprite, but it isn't able to find where that sprite actually is.

What I'd do is:

- Go back to the drawing board on that AnimationClip; delete it and remake it from the ground up with the below steps in mind
- Take a look at your Player object and make sure everything is in the right place -- make sure your Sprite is where it should be (reference it against the animation tutorial video if that helps), and double-check your other game objects in the Player's hierarchy as well. This will help us make sure the problem is with the Animator or the AnimationClip and not the Player's structure
- Under Slots, for both the Player and the Attack, make sure that "Animator" is slotted with the Animator attached to the Player and to the Attack itself, respectively; having either of those wrong can cause the Animation Clip not to play
- For the Attack, the Animation is divided into two parts: the Actor Animations and the Attack Animations. The Actor Animation references the animation the actor itself performs -- i.e., Booster swinging his arm for a slash -- and as such, that AnimationClip needs to be set up on the Actor's Animator. The Attack Animation references the animation the attack performs -- i.e. the slash itself -- and as such, its AnimationClip should be set up on the Attack's Animator.
- With all of that in mind, you'll be setting up two animations. When you're ready to create the Actor's attack animation, click on the Actor's Sprite under Player > SpriteHolder > JitterHolder > Sprites > Sprite, and in the Animator window, create a new Animation Clip there. Verify that it works. When you're ready to create the Attack animation, click on the Attack itself, drill down into SpriteHolder > Sprite on the attack, and then create a new AnimationClip in the Animator window

This is a thing that I think is a little deceptive, in that it's actually really straightforward, but Unity's Animator is so finicky that it's easy to get things tangled up (I still do it all the time, for what that's worth). I think following the steps above carefully and maybe re-watching the video step-by-step should clear it up for you, but keep me posted, and we'll get through it.

4. Yep, you can adjust the hitbox size of weapons at any time by adjusting the size of the Box Collider 2D attached to the attack in the Animator. So you can do things like: "On frame 5 of the animation clip for the Slash animation, make its hitbox smaller, or move it 5 pixels to the right," or pretty much anything you feel like. There are a lot of cool possibilities here, and I plan to do a video soon, probably using the Holy Water from Castlevania as an example, since that literally spawns a brand-new animation and hitbox when it touches a surface.

 

Thank you so much for the kind words!

Metroidvanias, incidentally, are some of my favorite games -- Super Metroid is my favorite game of all time, and a lot of features in Rex are tailored explicitly towards making games like it. Stuff like: the way you can piece rooms together into a bigger overall level, the way you can add new abilities or upgrade them on the fly, and the way you can give the player added HP or MP are all made for this, and there's a bunch more.

- You can definitely add animations for when the player gets new abilities. The end of the demo showcases this when the player gets the ability to fly, and they play a specific animation showing their wings unfurl.

- There's no system in place for this at the moment, although I know most of the later 2D Metroids make really good use of this with Samus's blaster only showing up on one side. That said, Rex Engine has some pretty explicit points in its code where it detects what animation to play, so I'd be happy to show you where that is if you'd like to modify it to also check what direction the player is facing.

- There's no glide yet, but it's been on my to-do list for a long time. If it's something you're interested in, I'd be happy to bump it up to the next update, since I already have it mostly planned out.

Hope that helps, and hope to work more with you soon!

 

Heya, I appreciate you checking out Rex! I'm glad you like it so far.

The frame time question is a surprisingly complex one. I did a lot of back-and-forth about how this would work when I was first coming up with Rex; I had tested a bunch of other assets where the physics weren't totally consistent, so depending on frame fluctuations, the player would, say, jump slightly higher or slightly lower. One of my main goals with Rex is to make it so that never, ever happens; the player's jump, for example, will always peak at the *exact* same location, whether the Update frame rate is running at 120 FPS or whether it's chunking out at 2 FPS with 5000 enemies onscreen.

It uses a mix of both Update and FixedUpdate to do that; a lot of the physics-based things use FixedUpdate for stability, which means that changing your Fixed Update rate could potentially make some physics move faster or slower, but the regular Update rate won't affect them; although every approach has its ups and downs, I stand by that as my preferred way of doing it, because it means that temporary fluctuations in FPS won't affect gameplay.

With that said -- wow, you're totally right, some of those projectiles are firing off at inconsistent rates. Projectiles use a different movement system than Player movement, so it looks like there's a bug there that I need to address. Thanks for pointing it out! I'm looking into it, and I'll hopefully get it fixed soon so they fire at the same rate.

 

Hey thanks a lot for the reply, and for clarifying my doubts, i honestly tried other engines and this one is clearly the bestest of the best, it will help me a lot with my claymation metroidvania, and yeah it will be great if you can add the glide power, and once i buy it help me out (if needed) with the multidirectional sprite thingy.

Btw, does it has a save system ?

Thanks a lot again for everything

 

Oh, man, a claymation Metroidvania sounds AWESOME. I definitely want to see pics when you're ready.

Rex sort of does and doesn't have a save system. Unity provides a lot of save functionality on its own, which is mostly what I use for game saving with Rex projects. Rex uses this in its demo to some degree, to save high scores between playthroughs, but it doesn't save them if you turn the game off. But, that functionality is like 90% there, so you can see the stuff the demo does and then just add a couple lines it code to make it save permanently. I'd be happy to help you with the other bit if you'd like.

 

Got it !! thanks again for the fast reply, i will buy the engine, and thanks for the interest on my game, so far i can't share a lot but a wallpaper :



Thanks =D

 

That looks awesome. Lemme know when you've got it set up in Rex; I'm working on a "Made with Rex" page to help promote people's games, and I'd love to feature it.

 

Sure thing, thanks again for the interest =,D

 

Soon:

 

Awesome *.* !!

I already bought the engine and i really love it, such a great work you did there <3, btw, idk if someone told you this before, but the songs in the videos are really cool, just wondering, is there a way to get them ? not for games or so, just to listen to them =D

 

Sure, send me a PM.

 

Emm, sorry for the dummy question, but how do i send a PM .__. ?

 

No problem; I just sent you one.

 

@BeeZee
Hi there!
I've been researching several Unity Extensions to develop my pixel game, and after a veeeeery long time thinking and trying and studying the choices, I am going to buy yours this weekend. Because of you, you seem like a very nice and approachable developer, putting a lot of care and passion on your project. So you got me.

But, then, I would like to ask you the following:

- Are you planning on adding some inventory system or integration with some of the existing popular choices?
- About extending your code, how difficult could be creating short of a Slow motion effect just for the right time to throw QTE events?
- Unity 2018 is here! should I wait for you to test it? Do you think there will be any issues with the new version?

Thank you for all, and man... please keep up the good work.

 

Hello, just wondering if you can guide me or give me an advice, which is the best way to set animations, let's say i have a jump animation that starts when the character is preparing to jump and then it jumps, so what i want to know is, if it's better to create the whole animation like that or separate it in 2 animations, one preparing to jump, and the other one jumping, and if having 2 animations like that are supported by rex or not.

All of this to have smoother transitions between animations, the same with running, falling, melees etc.

Thanks =D.

 

I'm using Unity 2018 and so far i have no problems with Rex, but @BeeZee here is the expert