As we described in the Scene Basics section, scenes control a game’s flow and can be thought of as various states in a game that you transition between, like a story.
Contents
How To: Changing Scenes
Gotchas
Transitions
Example: Enter Door, Switch Scene
Example: Level Selector
How To: Changing Scenes
Changing a scene involves 3 parts.
What scene you want to go to next (or reload the same scene)
The exit transition
The entry transition
Use the following blocks (Scene > Game Flow) to perform a scene change.
(If it isn't apparent, a reload will "switch" to the current scene)
Gotchas
1) Resist the temptation to perform 0 second transitions. Instead, go with a low number such as 0.01, for stability.
2) You cannot perform multiple scene changes at the same time. Once a scene change is in progress, it must reach completion before another scene change is initiated. Any new requests for scene changes will be ignored.
Transitions
Stencyl supports 7 different kinds of transitions for scene changes. Transitions are the visual effects applied
Fade
Blinds
Bubbles
Spotlight
Blur
Box
Crossfade
You can preview all of these transitions in the following demo.
Note: Mobile games currently support just Fade Out and Fade In. They’ll support all transition types in Stencyl 2.5.
Example: Enter Door, Switch Scene
In this simple example, we’ll make the hero enter the cave once he steps into the cave’s door, represented by a Region.
I opted to use a “Actor Type Enters Region” event and placed a Region over the door to detect entry.
- Unzip and stick the project into your Games directory as "Level Selector Demo"
- Don't know where your Games directory is? Click the "View Games Directory" button at the bottom of the Welcome Center (the first screen you see after opening Stencyl)
The Concepts
To pull this off, I’ll use the “get scene with name” block (Scene > World). This block returns a scene, given a name.
Now, I can drag this block into our regular scene switch block. You knew you could do that, didn’t you?
Our goal is to make a simple behavior that we can reuse. To pull off a clean Level Select, our scenes have to have a predictable naming scheme. How about we just give each level a number as a name, starting from 1?
If we do that, we can then pass a Number Attribute into the “get scene with name” block, and it will magically switch to the scene with that “name”
The Implementation: Creating the Buttons
Putting this all together, here’s a behavior that creates 5 Level Select buttons in a row, spaced apart by 100 pixels.
Mini-Challenge: You should extend this, so that it wraps over and starts a new line upon hitting the 6th button)
Note: The "for Last Created Actor, set ..." block is a special block that sets the value of a different Behavior's attribute.
In this case, we're effectively telling the block what Scene it's associated with, otherwise it wouldn't know which Scene to switch to and what to draw.
Each Level Select button contains 2 Events and a single Number Attribute (called “SceneNumber” that tells the button what scene it should represent in the Level Select.
1) One event that draws the button.
2) One event that switches the scene when the button is pressed.
That's it! If you’d like to play further this with example, download it above.
Summary
Scenes are the states in a game.
Changing scenes involves an exit transition and entry transition.
You can only perform one scene change at a time.
Challenge: Actor’s Position in “Next” Scene
In Zelda, when Link walks off the edge of a room, he naturally appears at the “right” spot in the next room.
For example, if he steps off the right side of a room, he will usually appear at the left side of the next room.
This turns out to be a challenge because you need to reposition your hero, based on where he came from before.
Fortunately, there’s a block that can help you out (Scene > Game Flow).
Use this block to implement a generic, reliable system for placing an actor at the “right” spot, much like the Zelda game does.
Last Updated: 2012-05-13 by Ceric
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8 Comments
rogerbordini Hey guys, I need to do exactly the same "Actor’s Position in `Next` Scene" as in Zelda. Please, anyone knows how to do that? 02 weeks, 3 days ago
Bathrobeman When i change scene, the tiles (but not the actor) in the next scene are invisible. I tried everything but it doesnt help. plzz help me!!!!!!
PS.: My game is a platform game 06 months ago
MrRoboman4321 @JamesJanzen I do. Make it so 'Set(LockedLevels) to FarthestOpenLevel on'. 06 months, 3 weeks ago
JamesJanzen I'm going to attempt to make locked levels, through quite a few "if" blocks. I'm just wondering if there's an easier way than "if LEVELCOMPLETE = true, level animation = unlocked" and so on..? 07 months, 3 weeks ago
Zafq I actually want to add a Level Select scene where the future scenes are locked untill you beat the scene before it...Tips? 09 months, 1 week ago
Phillament This is really helpful so far, thank you for sharing! I noticed an error in the challenge section though, the 'Get scene with name' block is said to be in Scene > Game Flow, when it is actually in Scene > World. At least it is in my version of Stencyl. Thought I'd point it out just in case. 011 months, 4 days ago
MDuru80 I thought the "SceneNumber" was a game Attribute but it was just an Attribute! So now I completely understand them now. 011 months, 2 weeks ago
