Effects

by Justin (Updated on 2018-11-29)

Contents

• What are Effects?
• Demo
• Effects & Performance
• Gotchas

What are Effects?

Effects let you add visual flair to actors (and images), without having to add new animations or additional code to the game. All effect-related blocks are located under Actor > Effects.

Demo

The following demo demonstrates all of the available effects in Stencyl.

Effects and Performance

Don't continually re-apply effects every frame of the game.

This will drain performance because the underlying images for the Actor's animation will continually be re-generated per-frame.

Effects in themselves are not performance impacting. It's the application of effects that takes relatively long.

Gotchas

• Some effects may work only in Flash. These effects are denoted with a red, Flash icon.
• On the Desktop and Mobile targets, all effects except tint are simulated using software and consequently can slow down games, especially when you use "remove all effects".
• Effects persist, even when an Actor's animation changes.
• Only 1 effect may be applied at a time to a particular actor or image. To apply several, use the apply block multiple times.

Tip: On Desktop and Mobile, if you want to tint an actor and un-tint it, instead of using "remove all effects", apply a white tint to the actor, which has the same net effect, without the performance penalty.

Summary

• Use effects to add visual flair without importing new animations.
• Use effects responsibly to maintain good performance.