The idea, addition, and creation of the Storyboard Editor in MAX is genius. So, keep that in mind with this request. I don't want to lose sight of the fact of how great an idea it is. It's a fantastic tool for structuring your game visually, which is something I completely dig. Having said that, it's very inflexible at the moment. That may be okay for a basic game creation tool, but it's very limiting for anything that's a bit more serious. And I know quite a few of us want to be a lot more ambitious with MAX.
What I would like to propose is that the Storyboard become a lot more freeform and open. It should operate more like a node system, where the developer drops in nodes of storyboard elements and connects them as they please, in the order they please. If they want to string together several "splash screens", so be it. Perhaps one is used to advertise GameGuru MAX, one for the developer, etc., like we see in a lot of modern games.
Perhaps the developer wants the player to play through 5 levels and then get a few more "splash screens" that add more story elements before moving on to play more levels. Then 10 more levels and then another splash screen, etc. These not only provide story elements, they provide breaks for the player to refresh themselves before diving back into the action of the game.
Then, perhaps the developer wants a bit more than just a Won Screen or a Lost Game Screen. Maybe they want a Credits Screen to give credit to the modeler, the voice actor, etc. Maybe they want to advertise their next creation. Or maybe they just want to take a moment to thank the player for playing their game.
What I envision is the developer can drag in a node of a certain type - Screen or Level node, for example. If the node is a Screen node, when they go into Edit Mode, they have a sidebar with a set of button types they can select from. These would include ALL the buttons available for everything we would find for the title screen, save game, graphic settings, sound, etc. The developer could drag in the buttons they want to use for that screen and arrange them as they like, where they like. The connections they make between nodes would determine the flow of these screens, one to another.
A template would be provided, of course (a basic layout, so to speak), so that most would not have to start from scratch. But for those of us that want to do our own thing and want to make every bit of our game stand out as completely our own, we could do so every step of the way.
I hope you'll consider something like this for the Game Storyboard.
Tum1370
commented
2 years ago
The idea, addition, and creation of the Storyboard Editor in MAX is genius. So, keep that in mind with this request. I don't want to lose sight of the fact of how great an idea it is. It's a fantastic tool for structuring your game visually, which is something I completely dig. Having said that, it's very inflexible at the moment. That may be okay for a basic game creation tool, but it's very limiting for anything that's a bit more serious. And I know quite a few of us want to be a lot more ambitious with MAX.
What I would like to propose is that the Storyboard become a lot more freeform and open. It should operate more like a node system, where the developer drops in nodes of storyboard elements and connects them as they please, in the order they please. If they want to string together several "splash screens", so be it. Perhaps one is used to advertise GameGuru MAX, one for the developer, etc., like we see in a lot of modern games.
Perhaps the developer wants the player to play through 5 levels and then get a few more "splash screens" that add more story elements before moving on to play more levels. Then 10 more levels and then another splash screen, etc. These not only provide story elements, they provide breaks for the player to refresh themselves before diving back into the action of the game.
Then, perhaps the developer wants a bit more than just a Won Screen or a Lost Game Screen. Maybe they want a Credits Screen to give credit to the modeler, the voice actor, etc. Maybe they want to advertise their next creation. Or maybe they just want to take a moment to thank the player for playing their game.
What I envision is the developer can drag in a node of a certain type - Screen or Level node, for example. If the node is a Screen node, when they go into Edit Mode, they have a sidebar with a set of button types they can select from. These would include ALL the buttons available for everything we would find for the title screen, save game, graphic settings, sound, etc. The developer could drag in the buttons they want to use for that screen and arrange them as they like, where they like. The connections they make between nodes would determine the flow of these screens, one to another.
A template would be provided, of course (a basic layout, so to speak), so that most would not have to start from scratch. But for those of us that want to do our own thing and want to make every bit of our game stand out as completely our own, we could do so every step of the way.
I hope you'll consider something like this for the Game Storyboard.