Aaaah, so it WAS overlapping instances of the widget (literally the last thing I was thinking that maybe it was doing after I sent you the google drive link, lol). adding to the viewport an instance of it once for each instance of a Parent Character Class’s child (so 5 of them).
Graphically, there wasn’t really a way to visually see it doing that (unless my eyes could somehow catch each frame as they happen, as I assume they are drawn on the same screen z axis, so there may have been some visual flickering I couldn’t see), but I thought maybe that was what it was doing.
Odd that it made issues with seeing the changes to the other health bars but the 2nd one was visible at the top. Must be just luck with how it decided to draw them. That would also explain how 1 time I tested it and it appeared to work for Player 3’s hud instead of 2’s, but only did that one time.
I’m working on this one step at a time. For now it’d be local, but once I have the time to really go over networking multiplayer tutorials (I’ve no previous experience with networking), I’d want it to be able to be played online.
It’s going to be a side scroller beat em up game similar to games like Streets of Rage, TMNT on the NES or TMNT Turtles in Time on the SNES, or the recent TMNT game that came out. That would essentially be the “story mode” with 1 player or 2 player co-op. It would also have a stationary screen battle mode like with Smash Bros (any of them). I’ve got it set up with one parent class that will have all the functionality for characters, and under that 2 child classes one for players and one for AIs, and under the Player Character child class I’ve got further child classes to make it easier to make multiple playable characters with different play styles, and underneath those, it would be easy enough to make individual characters with their own names, sprites, etc, but still following the same fighting style of their immediate parent. This setup isn’t entirely necessary for making differently named character instances, but it’s helpful to do it this way because my Hit Check function can very easily differentiate Teams/Factions using different Class Filters. So for Story Mode for instance, it’d be Player Character in one filter, and AI in the other. For Melee Mode though, it would just use Parent Character Class as the filter, with the != to Self so that anyone can hit anyone but themselves.
My Player Number enum is to determine the player slot so to speak (any specific character can fall under players 1 through 4), as well as AI because Bosses are just AI with a health bar (regular ai enemies won’t use the health bar, so it’ll be hidden for them).
thanks for the tip! for local single player/multiplayer, I actually plan to change the camera to be zoomed out to see the whole screen (not attached to the player). for online multiplayer, my plan is for everyone to have their own screen, but I’m thinking it would have to follow the same method: camera stationary viewing the whole level. after all, I don’t want players on the same team to have to go searching for each other, and likewise for melee battle mode, it wouldn’t be fair if you can’t find your opponent.
Edit: Only thing I’m not sure about is whether I want the players themselves to be able to cause the screen to scroll (in story mode) when they head to the right side of the screen, or if I want it to automatically happen once all enemies on the screen are defeated (characters run towards next area as the screen scrolls, and you regain control once there so you can beat up more enemies). Both things have been done by previous games in the genre, and I’m not sure which I will like better. I may try both and see which I like better.
Currently, it has a somewhat default camera mechanic, it’s attached to the player capsule via spring arm. I don’t plan on leaving it like that.
I’m thinking it won’t be too hard to attach the camera to the level. But I wouldn’t mind any tips you can give!
You should watch the videos below. All methods for multiplayer differ from each other (a lot) and for each method you have to plan how you create your functions. If you don’t you will reach a point where you will have to recreate nearly your whole game which leads to you having double/triple the amount of work.
