Simple Questions Answered. Got a question?

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
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*** Moderation ***

Please use this thread as READ-ONLY.

Such a large thread is no good place for questions. The top post is not maintained for a long time.
Any already asked questions and solutions are hidden within 130 pages of posts.

If you have a question:

  • do a search first
  • if you do not find satisfying answers open a new thread (give it a proper title)

**** End of moderation ***

If you have any minor questions you need answering, post away!

20/6 update: I apologise for all the missing images, I have corrected and updated the text. Text in quote tags = OUTDATED INFORMATION, I’ll need help updating it to reflect recent changes within Blender.

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Q. How can I make my game into an .exe?

A. Do File > Pack Data then do File > Save Runtime this saves your game into an .exe (executable file) which doesn’t require belnder to work. Dong this on Windows for example will produce an .exe only compatible for Windows systems. You will also need to include DLL’s in the same folder as the .exe for it to function properly. Link to required DLL’s below:

Required Dll’s

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Q. What about making my .exe run in fullscreen?

A. Go into to the scene menu (F10) and on the far right you will see “Game Frame Settings” click that, another menu will appear and there will be a button saying “Fullscreen”.

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Q. Can I make an .exe which I compile on my Operating System (Q.1) work on my friend’s computer with a different Operating System?

A. Try the blendStarter:

http://www.albartus.com/blendstarter/

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Q. Can’t I just block my .blend file from being opend?

A. Yes by doing two things,

  1. Game>Autostart
  2. Make a new Python script and enter the folowing code:
import Blender
 
Blender.Quit()

Next activate scriptlinking, select onload and link it to the script. When you now save your blend file it automatically closes Blender when you’re trying to open the file.

WARNING: BE CARFULL NOT TO DO THE ABOVE TO YOUR MASTER COPY OF THE GAME AS IT STOPS YOU FROM OPENING YOUR BLEND SOURCE FILE IN BLENDER.

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Q. How can I make a gun that shoots?

A. Make two cubes, resize one of them to a smaller size than the other, this will be our bullet. Name the small cube ‘bullet’, move the smaller cube to another layer (select cube press M). Place an empty at one end of our bigger cube (the gun), now setup your logic bricks so the empty will spawn the bullet object upon a button being pressed.

{Ensure the little L is selectedwhen you set up the bullet spawning, this makes our bullet Local so it will shoot in the same direction as your gun.)

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Q. Can I sell my games?

A. Yes you can. You may sell anything you make in Blender, you could even sell Blender.

More on Blender’s license agreement here: http://www.blender.org/education-help/faq/gpl-for-artists/#c2127

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Q. How do I make an MMORPG, RPG, GTA Style, or FPS game in Blender?

A. The simple answer is, your own way. You’ll need to acquire the skills and experience to undertake such a task, you’ll need adequate planning documents for a start.

Read a more indepth answer here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=100934

And you could make good use of a template kindly created and released by experienced BA members. Such as:

Social’s FPS temple
cray’s RPG/Third Person template
morgade’s network multiplayer template
Bzoo (Network multiplayer template)

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Q. What do I need to do before I begin my game project?

A. You need to plan your project out first before you do anything else.

Read up on this by Social: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=78643

“Failing to plan is planning to fail” ~ Alan Lakein

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Q. Ahh I just started making somthing in Blender and I forgot to save it!! Then Blender crashed on me, can I get my work back??

A. Yes, you can! Have no fear. On a Windows system, go to the following location:
My Computer > C: > tmp and in that folder are all blend files which were last used when Blender closed (either when you quit or if Blender happened to crash).

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If you have any minor questions you need answering, post them here!

Last updated: 20 June '09 (missing pictures removed, shabby answers brushed up and made clearer).

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Hey kinda cool post here. I vote for a sticky. Its funny, I am writing a personal history of my experiences with the blender GE. As a refrence guide for new people.

I think along with this post, there are other questions that would take longer to explain. example.

How do I make a mmorpg in blender?
How do I make a RPG in blender?
How do I make GTA type game in blender?
How do I make a FPS in blender?

These questions my not be asked in the post, but the post itself usually points to these questions. I am not saying to make a place to discourage people, but make a place where people can go and get good answers. A place where new and old users can find the information they are looking for in 1 place! not just links to the info. I think a wiki would be best. I will talk to the guys at blenderwiki and see what we can do. If not maybe if this gets stickied we can just turn this into a mini blender game making guide, and put all the info here.

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Thanks , i’ll add those questions in, but as you said theres no real “answer” to those questions only advise, help on making certain things with in those games etc…

4

Here’s mine question:I am making a game where you shall move a ball through a course and when i’ll make the ball and camera parents, the camera just starts to rotates because the ball rotates anyone know how to fix this or know a better solution how to make the camera follow the ball?

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Yes, add an empty in the middle of your ball, parent your ball to the empty & camera to the empty, make your ball rotate with DRot and dont have it as an actor, have your empty do the moving, this way your ball will roll but your camera wont as its following the empty.

If you dont quite understand that just say and i will wip up an example.

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I don’t quite understand the part with making the empty moving could you explain better or give an example file please?

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Sure can will only take me a sec to make :slight_smile: , here you go

Ball Example

It should help you bud,
Brave.

8

hello, I was interested in how do you go about rendering cool sky effects in your game.

Is it as simple as making a huge dome/cube and putting sky texture and lights on it? If so, um… how …? I still don’t exactly get it.

And yeah that includes how would you make a sun in the sky and stuff like that? Is there a button to press - i hope so u_u/

thank ya

9

Ok, well the only way i know of is having a huge cube or dome with sky texture mapped on it, i also saw a blend someone made (cant remember who) and it had a sun with the halo glare effects you see in some FPS games, but the simplist way i can think of is the cube/dome technique.

10

My skybox tut for the BGE should help you out in that department:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=71448

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hey social, did or are you still in portal forums?

And I have some questions…

  1. How do you create a trigger for a goal? (I plan on having a tube, and once the ball lands in the tube, it triggers an ending… Preferably “You win!” and posts the time they took, via my timer that I have to learn how to make…)

  2. How do you make an object follow the mouse? I believe it has to do with python…

  3. I liked the idea of the rolling ball and the camera, but i want my ball to have physics and fall down and such… do you know of any way to have the camera follow that?

Thanks

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As for the skybox thing: I will be posting a mini skydome tutorial that should get people up and running with beautiful sky effects.

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spiffyandy -

im definitely not a ge guy but for your first question, use a plane that is invisible (uv settings) and have it hooked up to a collision sensor. you can have it create objects via the “edit object” actuator. that would take care of the text, and then just have an end object “edit object” actuator if you want the object to disappear.

dont know the second answer (not great with python); maybe someone else can help.

as for the third question, i think it already does all that in braveheart’s example - it’ll fall off the edge of the plane if you go far enough.

14

Portal forums? I don’t know which forums you are reffering to exactly, but probably no.

  1. How do you create a trigger for a goal? (I plan on having a tube, and once the ball lands in the tube, it triggers an ending… Preferably “You win!” and posts the time they took, via my timer that I have to learn how to make…)
    Have an object at the bottom of the cube with a collision sensor that will activate when in contact with the ball. Then branch out appropriate output from that collision sensor to the relevant actuators/python script to engage actions (like “You win” or “Game over”)
  1. How do you make an object follow the mouse? I believe it has to do with python…
    You do that with python.
  1. I liked the idea of the rolling ball and the camera, but i want my ball to have physics and fall down and such… do you know of any way to have the camera follow that?
    I usually script my own camera handler, but I’v seen projects using the camera actuator and get fine results. Also, there is a method called vertex parenting that goes around the stick rotation problem afaik. If that’s the problem you are reffering to.

That’s nice. Although I think using a skybox has a certain edge on the “skydome thing”. Sure, a skydome can be easier to initially set up, but that’s if you have the right skydome tex map, and I don’t know about you, but finding a variety of skybox texture sets turns out to be much easier then finding the appropriate skydome textures for games.

I mean the skybox has a good decade of tradition in video games, there are more resources for it on the net when it comes to 3D interactive content.

I always thought of a skydome as something best suited for the raytracer, rather than real time.

Oh and of course, a skybox is only 6 faces, and it’s just more uniform than a skydome. I could be biased here, but I think it’s very true.

15

I found a really good way to easily create a skydome texture. Please, keep your doubts reserved until you see the product :slight_smile:

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Ok well thanks for the help, although I am still fuzzy on how to do this… (GE wise, I suck)
And Social- I meant portalforums.net there is a guy there named social, who has the cowboy pic like you did.

I am going to make a thread for my game, and I did some planning following socials advice

Thanks

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I by no means doubt you, or your good work.

I’m just giving some input that I got from people after publishing the skybox tut, because before then (and not to brag here) there was really no tutorial presenting an efficient method for making a truly “seamless” skybox in the BGE, so everyone “had” to do the skydome thing.

But now they don’t:

From the tutorial thread I posted earlier. Luma is one of the guys working on “Club Silo”.

[quote="spiffyandy"] And Social- I meant portalforums.net there is a guy there named social, who has the cowboy pic like you did. [/quote]

What!!?? That’s not me, someone might be ripping me off. I’ll look into it.

18

I look forward to that.:smiley:

Thanks Social.:slight_smile:

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yeah social, you don’t want him taking your skybox bragging rights. :wink:

no really; that’s pretty cool that luma conformed to your technique. kudos.

20

Do you guys have blender wiki edit rights??

If not may I add your information to the wiki as I see fit?

http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_the_Game_Engine

I do have edit rights.