Overlap2D runtime for HaxeFlixel

[Avetis Zakharyan]

Hi guys, I am one of the developers behind Overlap2D (http://overlap2d.com/) which is an open source ui and level editor, and it's pretty language agnostic, meaning it just exports data into predefined format, and then provides different runtimes for all frameworks to load and render it. It is currently supporting libGDX only. And I wanted to add haxeflixel to the supported list. I checked and as far as I can tell there is no editor for this framework, so it might be handy? (Except tiled, but overlap2d supports both tiled and non tiled level structures)

I would be thankful if this who already use this for games, will check out our website/video, is this something you need for haxeflixel?

Overlap2D currently supports things like having spine, spriter, sprite animations, text labels, images, particle effects, custom shaders e.g. But the atlas file is exported in libGDX texture packer format. So the solution here can be either provide reader classes with the runtime, or make a plugin for the editor that will export in more HaxeFlixel friendly format. (What is the friendly format here for atlas files, and particle effects?)

In general it will be hard for me to implement this all, so if there are guys who love the idea and want to help, I would really appreciate that.

Best.

[SruloArt]

* Yes. Definitely in need for (something like) Overlap2D. I've looked into it before, but the Java barrier threw me off. Still, I've been monitoring your editor from the early beginning, and it's awesome.  

* libGDX texture atlas is supported by HaxeFlixel. I think it can even export its runtime atlas in libGDX format, but I'd have to look it up. HaxeFlixel also supports TexturePacker and Shoebox atlas formats. I prefer libGDX actually. HaxeFlixel also supports whatever your editor offers, the implementations are there.

* You can open an overlap2d-runtime-HaxeFlixel repo and I'm sure people would jump right in. However, that's still a one big Java code base to convert to Haxe, or am I missing something?

[Avetis Zakharyan]

Sounds like a good start, I'll create the repo. Not sure "where" is the best place to let as much people know as possible?

skeletonAs for the java part, I do not think looking gat java code base is anyhow necessary. Things there are done the libGDX way, for this case, things has to be done haxe way, so it can be written quickly and from scratch using our API guide. Which is quick and easy imho.

All runtime has to do is to a) read the JSON files with data according to specification. 2) render that data the way it's done with haxeflixel normally.

Here is the link to documentation on creating the runtime: http://overlap2d.com/data-api-creating-custom-runtime/

I am curious about some other stuff as well. Like for example, what is the best architecture? in libGDX runtime we thought to also put inside an ECS framework, with systems and components to make things simpler, while this is completely not neccecary, this was nice. I am not sure if this should be done in this case.  Would be cool to hear from this who already use Haxe a lot in game dev, on what architecture will suite best. Or is simplicity - best way to go. (meaning just parse and render)

[SruloArt]

* Most, if not all of the devs are using Github. I think you should open an issue on the flixel repo (https://github.com/HaxeFlixel/flixel) so the owners and key contributers would get notified about the new repo and your intentions. This group is great, but the real discussions are Github's issues' threads.

* API AND runtime making docs? I don't remember seeing these before :) that makes everything heck of a lot easier to achieve. Parsing should be simple, "rendering" is a bit of work (flixel doesn't have layers, for example, but there's a FlxScene: https://github.com/HaxeFlixel/flixel-addons/blob/c6c9a6339b3042782ac81d68b791ffa663370379/flixel/addons/util/FlxScene.hx).

* I wouldn't try imposing any kind of architecture on HaxeFlixel really, I know that makes a lot of sense with an editor, but it's just not necessary and may produce some issues IMHO (for example, you can't simply add a physics [nape] body to a FlxSprite to enable physics - you have to use a modified FlxSprite for that).

[Avetis Zakharyan]

Just created the empty repo here: https://github.com/UnderwaterApps/overlap2d-runtime-haxeflixel

I will be posting on the flixel github soon. 

as for adding the physics example, there are 2 ways to go about it. Either we have our custom class extended from FlxSprite that has physics and other things. Or, we use something like this: https://github.com/nadako/Ash-HaXe  and then we can add physics as a component to an entity. I guess it depends on if "usage of entity component systems" is popular in haxeflixel community.

[Avetis Zakharyan]

here is the github post: https://github.com/HaxeFlixel/flixel/issues/1651#issuecomment-153254840