Cinematics System

Hello,
In regards to the frequency of these posts; sorry. I'll try to maintain a weekly/biweekly posting schedule moving forward. You can expect these blog posts to go out on either Friday or Saturday. In recent times I have been looking at the cinematic requirements of the game. Certain elements are required to make the game feel cohesive. These may be small things like the transitions between levels, or cutscenes to introduce certain plot points to the player. In response to these needs, I will be developing a cinematics system.

The cinematics system will function similarly to the native timeline in legacy versions of GameMaker. The purpose of the timeline was to execute events consecutively. Instead of events, this system will execute scripts consecutively. For example, imagine a door is about to be opened. Here are the series of events executed once the player touches the door:

1. Transition: Fade in to black
2. Change level: Next level
3. Transition: Fade out

This is a rather simple example, so here is a more sophisticated example, possibly for what may happen when the player enters a boss room:

1. Deactivate: Boss and player movement
2. Camera lock: Boss monster (lock the camera onto the boss sitting on the opposite side of the player)
3. Animate: Boss monster taunting
4. Screen shake: 3 seconds
5. Camera lock: Player
6. Activate: Boss and player movement

The cinematics system should solve transitional and cinematic problems. It is also a more streamlined method of creating desired transitions and screen effects without creating multiple unnecessary objects dedicated solely for the purpose of one effect.

Until next time!