Game Salad: Can't merge scenes from different projects, BEWARE the program crashes!

My last entry dealt with migrating and merging. The team was about to migrate different projects (levels) from several computers into one computer in one main project, but we were having difficulty. We reviewed many times the video clip produced by Victor Leach (iDevices), where he explains the process, however in the end it proved ineffective because Game Salad DOES NOT merge different projects together well.

Why? For starters every project creates each actor with it's own ID tag number. You can't copy the actor into another project with its original tag number. The ID appears to be the number that links the actor to the rules and behaviors within its project and everything in that project. Thus, we've found that the only way to merge the projects is quite literally from scratch, starting over. Here are the steps we took to merge:

• We ultimately opened the two projects up side by side (the original next to the new main project).
• We created the number of scenes for each original project in the main project.
• We entered into the new scene in the main project and imported all the images we needed for the original project including audio clips. (HINT: Think Identical - Everything must be identical between the original project and its copy in the main project)
• We created each new actor in the main project and named it exactly as it was named in the original file. NOTE: It's very important that all actors be specifically named in relation to the particular project. By this I mean, say every level has a spawner. You can't just use the generic name "Spawner" if each level spawner does something different. So we named one Spawner - Baseball Spawner, while another spawner was named Basketball Spawner etc. What this means is that there cannot be the same names used in different scenes, UNLESS it acts the same way for every scene.
• We dragged each actor into the scene according to the way it was laid out in the original project.
• In each actor (not its prototype we didn't work with prototypes) we were able to copy and paste the rules and behaviors from one project into the main project. REMEMBER: You're building from scratch so you have to check all the actor attributes and make sure they are identical. 
• Your project needs to work just like the original so don't leave anything to chance. You'll have to add all the game attributes and check your layers as well. MAKE IT IDENTICAL.
• Each scene in the original must also be in proper order in the main project. 

The things we have left to do after we merge all the scenes together:

1. Create intro page to the game
2. Create the touch to start level over on the loser page.
3. Touch to save when leaving the game.

We have five levels in our game. Each one follows according to the other, so we are rebuilding the levels in the order that they would appear in the game. When I realized that merging was going to be a significant problem, I questioned how it was that people were able to do this. The advice I was given was to build a project with multiple levels on the same computer working each level after the other in succession.

I watched the various tutorials numerous times. I mentioned months ago that we were building levels of the game on various computers, yet nowhere was it mentioned that merging projects is next to impossible and that Game Salad does not recommend it. I cannot believe we are the first to encounter this problem or to suggest the idea of merging. Yet, nowhere is it explicitly mentioned that merging is not compatible in Game Salad. This is a huge oversight on the part of the Game Salad makers.

I would think people creating multi-level games would in fact work on different computers or on different projects with intention to merge later because it's efficient. Perhaps, a majority of designers build as one individual on one project at a time. We didn't and now we're learning the hard way.

Clearly, we weren't completely at a disadvantage because the original project does act as a map for the rebuilding process in the main project file. The time was obviously shorter building the level in the main project, but the merging issue wasn't expected thus we did not realize we would be dealing with the time to go through this process.

Another thing we discovered was that the ability to hyperlink comes with the pro version of Game Salad. I can live with putting the Web address at the end without hyperlinking the page, but I felt it should be mentioned here.

Also, since updating the latest version of Game Salad we have had numerous crashes. I had said that the program seemed more stable. Well, I have to eat my words. My first day merging I lost six hours of work when the program just wiped out all the work and left me looking at a white screen. It was so bad in fact that there was no way to recover the project and I had to start over. That day the program unexpectedly quite five times. We did start over and we made 12 renamed versions of the file so that if there was another hard crash we could recover something.

We are making progress merging the files. Jonathan Samn (from Game Salad) has been generous in offering to help us. We are closing in on finishing the game, but I have a small voice going off in my head. The size of our game. What is the size of the game ultimately going to be and is this going to kill our chances as an iPhone game app? We shall see.

The Webby People's Voice Award goes to... By Victor Ituarte

The University of Texas-Pan American's Reel to Red Productions is known for its feats in video, which includes two Lone Star Emmy's, a Telly, and an Aurora award to name a few. However, when the group comprised of UTPA students set foot in the digital realm of Web design, one of the last things they expected was for their site, ReeltoRed.com, to be selected as one of five finalists in the Student Web site category for the 14th annual Webby Awards - Internet's highest honor.

The New York Times has deemed the Webby Awards as "the online equivalent of an Oscar." The awards are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), a 650-person group that judges the entries. The 14th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide. The academy's picks are based on content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall experience.

What's different about the Webby Awards, aside from the traditional five-word acceptance speeches given at the ceremony in New York City, is the opportunity to win two awards for the same category: the Webby Award, which is selected solely by IADAS, and the Webby People's Voice Award, which is voted upon by the global community.

Reel to Red was in competition with two University of North Carolina schools, the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and a student out of Germany. The academy's pick for the Webby Award was andreaslutz.com from Germany, an interactive site that requires the use of a Web cam and a microphone to navigate its depths. However, it was Reel to Red that won the world over and garnered the most votes to take the prize of the Webby People's Voice Award.

"I was surprised and thrilled to find out when we were nominated," said James Hernandez, a Reel to Red team member and a senior journalism-advertising/public relations major at UTPA. "I'm glad our university has more exposure on an international stage."

Attempting to earn votes wasn't a walk in the park. The eight-member group hit the ground running the moment their nomination was announced on Tuesday, April 13. They pushed and campaigned for more than two weeks.

"We didn't waste any time. The morning I found out about our nomination, I sent a mass e-mail to all of the UTPA faculty and staff telling them about our nomination and included instructions on how to vote," said Chelse Benham, the director of Reel to Red.

Part of Reel to Red's proactive campaign included covering the sidewalks of the University with chalk advertisements, home-made T-shirts, balloons with instructions to vote, video pitches that were uploaded to YouTube, a marquee at the historic Cine El Rey theater in downtown McAllen, flyers, and requests to vote on the group's Facebook and Twitter accounts, but, Benham said, the largest portion of the votes probably came from sending e-mails to co-workers, family, and friends asking them to vote and setting up laptops in the Student Union at UTPA to guide people through the voting process.

"What was most memorable was that, after the first couple of days, people that voted knew us by name," said Oscar Garza, a long-time member at Reel to Red and a graduate of the English master's program at UTPA. "We were out there campaigning every day so a real feeling of a community on campus grew out of that."

And that hard work paid off.

On Tuesday, May 4th, the Webby Awards posted the Webby Award and Webby People's Voice Award winners and Reel to Red Productions was one of them.

"Our site is unique and our focus on the young, digital natives," Benham said. "The academy's decision of nominees were based on aesthetics, creativity, interaction, and content and we met all of that. Frankly, some of the other sites were typical CSS-style that you see on most sites. Our Web site devoted more attention on creative user interaction and design."

In their two weeks promoting at the Student Union and around campus, the group garnered great support from people on campus. Reel to Red acknowledges that they could not have accomplished this without the help and support of the UTPA community.

"It was inspiring having students walking up to us and telling us they voted with four e-mail addresses or that they got several of their friends to vote. We're not forgetting any of that. We are forever in their debt," said Alexis Carranza, a graduate of the graphic design program at UTPA and another Reel to Red member.

Even though their time in New York City may seem like a vacation to the Reel to Red team, Benham reminds them their work to represent, promote, and pay back UTPA will continue.

"I've made it mandatory to wake up early to make it to the outside of the Today show or Good Morning America with posters promoting UTPA," Benham explained. "Even at the ceremony with our five-word speech, we want to make a big impression on everyone watching. We're hoping to be featured on the highlight reel. Anything to continue to spread the word about UTPA."

The members of Reel to Red will travel to the Big Apple in early June to be a part of the festivities. They couldn't be more excited.

Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler and famed film critic Roger Ebert will be among some of the specially recognized attendees at the ceremony. Los Angeles rock group OK Go will receive the Artist of the Year Webby. Winners (and other potential attendees) in other categories include Jim Carrey's official Web site in Celebrity/Fan, The Muppets and Queen for "Bohemian Rhapsody" in Viral Video, and The Associated Press for their live coverage of President Barack Obama's inauguration in Events & Live Webcasts.

Although she may rub elbows with famous folk, Hilda Del Rio, one of the group's designers and a recent graduate graphic design major at UTPA, says she's more excited about mingling and dining with some of the most innovative minds of today's Internet world.

"I'm not so much about the celebrities that are going to be there, but more about the designers that worked on the Web sites," said the self-professed technology geek. "I would love to ask them about what they do differently during their creative process."

Benham said UTPA and Reel to Red will forever be saved in the collection of some of the best Web sites on the Internet.

"What's incredible is that being nominated is an automatic win because for the year of 2010, the only people that will be able to stake 'nominated for a Webby' in the student Web site category are the five of us that were in the running," Benham said. "If you look at the Webby home page, you'll find the names and links of the past 14 years of winners, some of which still get a lot of traffic. There's a sense of pride that we've left our mark on the Internet where, 10, 15, or 20 years from now, people can look back and see the name of our University."

Game Salad - Repeatable errors & Glitches; Stitching Levels - iDevices creator comes to the rescue

It has been a month since my last entry about the game app process using Game Salad. We have been busy promoting our WEBBY People's Voice Award nomination and I'm super happy to report we won! Hard work pays off.  During that time, Game Salad has released two updates to its program. Clearly, they are diligently working on fixing the problems with their software. But to that end, I'll do as I have done before and comment on some problems we have had. I know people don't enjoy criticism, but this isn't that. We're reporting our issues as beta testers in the hopes the Game Salad developers can identify the problems. It's a feedback thing.

We have found:

• That if you update to the latest version of Game Salad, actors lose some of their settings. Restitution to be exact. Be sure to check it if you discover a problem. 
• Sometimes when opening the game, it would regress to the previous session before the game was saved, which means it's not opening up on the latest saved version of your game.
• Some of the attributes within an actor will not engage until the actor is deleted from the scene and dragged back in, and yet some attributes do engage. Example: An actor with a display text rule that has already been put into the scene will still display "Hello World" even after the new text has been entered. So the actor had to be deleted from the scene and brought back in for the new text to show up.
• (Here's a big problem) Some actors who have a collide rule, say with a ceiling or platform actor, will ignore it and jump right through it and either (1) continue to zoom off screen into the ether or (2) come back down and land on top of the actor they were to be colliding with.
• We suspect it has something to do with the PNG. -  More specifically, if an actor box is created and a PNG is placed in it (a picture of a building) and that building actor is dragged to the scene and a collide rule is added to that actor, THEN another actor CAN NOT move through the newly built actor with the PNG.
• However, if you create an actor box and DON'T place a PNG into that actor box, and you drag the actor box into the scene and give it a collide rule, the other actors CAN pass through the newly created actor with no PNG. Perhaps, the issue is centered around the PNG aspect of an actor.
• We just tested this and it doesn't seem to hold. PNGs may make no difference to the actor moving through a collide rule.
• Resizing an actor in a scene causes glitches to the game play in preview.
• The "touch" rule didn't work until shutting down the system completely, once I quit out of Game Salad and relaunched it, the program reset and my "touch" command started working in preview mode.
• (Another big problem) After we updated to the latest version of Game Salad, the program restarts and the latest version of GS opens  - BUT the sound it is gone. Before we discovered that it is best to shut down the system AGAIN and relaunch to try and reset GS, we lost 3 hours trying to fix the sound. We when relaunched GB the sound came back on but we don't know why.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: When things aren't working correctly close down Game Salad and relaunch it. It seems to clear up some of the disfunction.

There are problems with Game Salad, but with time we have gotten better at working around them and to expect issues. On a positive note, Game Salad seems far more stable than ever before. I haven't experienced one crash. That's an enormous improvement.

Now we're ready to go to the next phase of building our game . Four of our five levels have been completed and we are ready to begin "stitching" (my term) the levels together.

I'd like to send a shout-out of thanks to my new friend Victor Leach of iDevices. I've said how much I appreciated his app iDevices because it helps you find coordinates on the screen of the iPhone. Well, he put together a little video to help us stitch, and as of this week it was still on SendSpace at

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ax4nqe

Stitching looks a little tricky, so I'm especially grateful to Victor  for putting the video together. We keep playing it over and over at our end. I highly recommend people to check it out if they too are having difficulty combining levels that have been built on multiple computers.

Dare I say it, this next phase will prove interesting and I will likely have much to write about migrating levels onto one computer and putting the levels together in my next entry. "Onward and upward."

Reel to Red Productions at The University of Texas-Pan American wins the WEBBY People's Voice Award!

Reel to Red Productions gets to wine & dine Hollywood style in NYC June 12 -14 for the 14th annual WEBBY Awards! We're extremely excited and proud to be representing our school in this prestigous, global Web competition. We heartedly thank all the wonderful supporters who voted for us and helped us to win the award. We most especially want to thank Dr. SJ Sethi, Eva Hernandez, Sandra Quintanilla, Janice Odom, Dr. Tim Mottet, Dr. Robert Nelsen, and all our Facebook fans for their support.