Phaser 2.1.2 "Whitebridge" is Released

[rich]

I'm pleased to say that we released Phaser 2.1.2 today.

 

Phaser 2.1.2 carries on with our latest round of new features, updates and fixes, demonstrating our commitment to continuously improving our framework and responding to feedback.

 

This release adds in a number of new features including Audio Sprite json format support, native loading of XML files, Sound fades, per character Text colours, further updates to BitmapData, the ability to use BitmapData with frames as Sprite textures, Group filter, search the Cache by URL and plenty of updates and bug fixes too - including the death of the pesky getPixel issue on Safari / iOS.

 

Internally we are using Phaser in ever larger client based projects. Thousands of lines of code spread across many States and classes, and we're paying close attention to how best to adapt the API to make life easier for those building apps of the size we are. If there are any features you would like to see then now is the time to suggest them, either by email, the forum or github.

 

We're also pleased to announce that we have 3 new premium plugins gearing up for launch. They are:

 

Phaser Box2D - Adds complete Box2D support directly into Phaser, with lots of help methods, over 50 examples and 5 demo games.

 

Phaser Path Manager - Create complex motion paths for Sprites with a lovely visual editor and this new plugin. No longer rely on tweens for motion Instead draw a path, with full branch support, path orientation, segment speeds, path events and more.

 

Advanced Particle System - The particles included with Phaser are flexible and can create attractive effects. But Advanced Particles is a complete replacement offering professional level particle effects for your games. From multiple render targets, to bitmap caching to all kinds of events, emitters and properties.

 

Each plugin will come in a range of versions to suit all budgets and there are more on the way.

 

Please visit the launch page to sign-up for notification as soon as they're ready.

[nkholski]

I just upgraded from 2.1.1 and everything seems to work great without any issues at all (and already made use of the per character color feature). I'm really impressed both by the progress of Phaser itself and the frequent and great updates. Playing with Phaser reminds me of my Amiga years in the nineties.

[CtlAltDel]

Did you forget to publish to npmjs.org? or is that taking some time

[rich]

No I tried, but it always bloody errors (Varnish cache errors their side). I'll try again later.

[CtlAltDel]

Ok Just checking.

[JUL]

Good job.

 

However, slowdowns experienced with 2.1.0 and 2.1.1 are still occuring, which is not the case with 2.0.5 and 2.0.7

 

But this time it's not casual, it's contant slowdown.

 

I've upgraded to maverick, I use the latest firexox (which is far from being the best browser regarding performances, but that's on purpose).

 

Those slowdowns do not occure on android with cocoonjs.

Performances and excelent.

Same with chrome, no slowdowns.

 

I've also noticed that there's much less heating with this version on my galaxySII than with 2.0.7.

 

 

 

 

 

Just to let you know.

[rich]

Very little I can do about that, it's at the mercy of Pixi. They are changing a lot internally there at the moment, so 2.1.3 will contain the next version. Hopefully things will have settled down a bit then.

[Mefteg]

Hello,

 

Thanks for the release!

Can you tell me if "native loading of XML files" means that bitmap font loading in CocoonJs is working now ?

[rich]

No that isn't what it means, Cocoon doesn't provide for any XML parsing and it still needs an XML parser to actually work.

[Mefteg]

Ah ok, so what do you mean by "native loading of XML files" ? (sorry if it's a silly question)

[rich]

As in you don't have to load them as text files and parse them yourself any more, you can just use load.xml.

[Mefteg]

Ok, I undestand. Thank you for the explanation.

[blueFire]

For some reason I get the following error when switching to 2.1.2:

 

Uncaught ReferenceError: PIXI is not defined                                                                      phaser.js:82

 

It worked perfectly on the previous version (and still does when I switch back).

 

Jason

[rich]

Something else is causing that - either a local set-up (requireJS maybe?) or using an incorrect build file, maybe a custom one?

[blueFire]

I am using notepad++ to modify the .js files then uploading them directly to the web server and testing them in a browser directly on the internet.

 

And I am using the Phaser.js (2.1.2) file that I downloaded from GitHub without changes to that file.

 

Jason

[blueFire]

Ah, I think I found the problem.  I was using the phaser.js file from the src directory instead of the build directory.  Changed to the one located in the build directory and now everything is working fine.

 

Thanks,

 

Jason

[MattBrooklyn]

This all sounds great. Nice work, and thanks for all the effort. 

[clark]

I have 4 games in various states, and the oldest was 2.0.5.  I just fired this in, and no problem! Works like a charm on ie9, stock android browser s2, ipad4 and ipod4. 

Amazing stuff! 

[jouniii]

After updating from 2.0.7. to 2.1.2 I noticed issues with the elapsed. Okay there's change with the timeCap (btw missing from TypeScript definitions) values. This caused some of my tween updates to behave incorrectly as the time scale calculated was capped to min 60fps (as default timeCap is min 60fps). Previous value was 1000ms (min 1fps). 

 

Nothing wrong with that really, although I think the default timeCap should be a bit higher to allow some spiking instead of fixing it to 60fps which is fairly high for mobile platforms (except for the latest devices). Also the Timer.timeCap did not receive the same default value change. 

 

Now what is the correct way of calculating elapsed difference of previous update() in a way that it is compatible with Timer and Tween (which don't timeCap)? As these obviously don't use the Time.elapsed and they go out of sync if timeCap is met. imho. the value of elapsed should be available prior timeCap for doing time scaling for manual animations (ie. driven partially through Tween) and without needing to store the previous update() time somewhere yourself.

 

Other than that, update went very well beside Sound.allowMultiple change which I had to set back to old default (default value would be nice to be able to configure instead of setting for every Sound object after creation). However I'm aware the problems with the current sound management and plan to improve it to bit on our following games and interested in the advanced particle system.

[rich]

Good point re: Timer.timeCap, I've updated it to reflect the same as Time. If they are too low both can be overridden easily.

 

A previous un-modified time value could be handy for sure, so I've added it in (https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/commit/3997a7c37205a7f4e7ae84c18cff026716e1acb5)

 

Tweens have never been linked to the Time.elapsed value and always calculated their own in a quite basic way. They could probably be changed to use it, it may keep things more aligned. I may test it in the dev branch, but honestly it may cause more trouble than it solves!

[jouniii]

Thanks for quick response time. The core idea which put me thinking about the timers and tweens for being linked to actual ticks (elapsed) instead of absolute time was that it would allow to do time scaling (either way, slower or faster) effects on tween level and archive those "classy" Matrix style Bullet Time effects. Of course there are places where you need absolute time timers (audio crossfading, etc). 

[edmundep]

Not sure if this is the proper place to put this request,

 

Newbie to phaser and like what i'm seeing so far. I have been working with other engines in the past and the performance with phaser its lovely. 

The one thing that I would love is a better animation manager. 

 

basically a more dynamic way of creating animation names. for example. 

if i want to create an animation of a frame range i can just do:

this.flame.animations.add('burn',[0-59]); // frame 0- 59 will play

this.flame.animations.add('burn2',[29-50,'burn']); // will play 29 - 59 then the burn animation in a loop

 

The reason for this is to allow for specific animations that need to loop with other custom animations on top of it. 

I have a lot of other games that use this but phaser won't let me so its tough to create seamless animations with some of my sprites. 

[Athul Dilip]

As a Flash Developer Box2D is my best friend! Can't wait to see Box2D in Phaser