IDEA: Using Ren'py with Flash

[A-413]

not sure where i was supposed to put this.
i thought of putting this in ren'py help, but this isn't really a "problem" or bug report.
and i thought of putting this in ren'py development, but this has nothing to do with changing the ren'py system.

it's just an idea i have about well.. a "potential" capability game creators could make use of. but yeah, still just an idea. and if people give some feedback or donate some thoughts to it, it could result in our skills being enhanced somewhat. .-. *cough*

So, now to the point of things.
Even though people have brought it up before, only to receive a negative answer about it, I was thinking about ren'py 's potential to be used with adobe flash builder/catalyst.

both ren'py and adobe flash have their own strengths.
since we're all pretty familiar with what ren'py is, i guess i'll just say some things about adobe flash first...

what is flash catalyst?
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-flash-c ... -catalyst/

cs5 flash pro x builder work pretty much the same way. you can make flash animation, games, and other cool stuff by working with layers, images, and frames like you would in photoshop, illustrator, and other art programs without needing to know code.

still, i must say out of experience (and others tend to agree) that

ren'py is easier than flash.

when it comes to composing the basic model of the game, making save/load screens, writing dialogue with a few clicks on the keyboard and making transitions without manually doing all this stuff yourself with tools in adobe, along with the other things you'd expect to see in a vn; ren'py does it far easier and quicker than adobe.

so now, you might be asking "well if ren'py can do everything just fine, why are you bringing up adobe???"

well ^-^ have you played a flash game before? they have many different kinds. shooting. racing. slashing. even puzzle-solving. using flash to make games like that without needing to know so much code is helpful. .-. it means that in your vn's you could add mini games and other fun things for people to do besides people just reading and pacing through text.

X-Note <- a downloadable flash date sim visual novel is a good example. while it follows the basic pattern of a visual novel, it also has fun mini games you can play on the side within the game.

i know that doing such things in ren'py is not impossible. i certainly know that. but to go far with this idea in ren'py would take some complex code. which i have no intention of spending years learning and studying.

so if adobe flash is offering me an easy way to make such mini games, why not take that chance, right?

this is where my idea comes in. ren'py and flash both have their strengths and weaknesses. even though people have said it's impossible or it won't work, i am in disbelief to those answers.

i actually think it could work. why? because ren'py and flash share something in common and that's action script. it's true, flash's action script can differ slightly compared to ren'py and other action script programs. but most of it is the same. action script is action script. however small little differences there may be in names in the code, most of it is the same. if it wasn't then they wouldn't call it action script; flash would call it something else or ren'py would call it something else.

that's the conclusion i've come to on my own. .-.

even though in flash these days (in the latest versions) you can work with images rather than using action script; that does NOT mean "action script" is not needed. as you piece things together, adobe is recording the action script in the background for you (at least that's what i heard in one of lynda's tutorials). and should something happen where you want to do something complex, they have a place where you can access your project's action script code and modify it however you want.

so i was thinking, if you could make a mini game of some sort in flash, copy the action script code of it, and insert it somewhere in ren'py if things would work out.

i know it won't be perfect because flash is *cough* a bit different. so you would have to modify some things in the code to have it work with ren'py. i know nothing about action script really so i have no idea what to do if that situation happens.

but before i do all the work and reach that situation, i want to ask everyone's thoughts on this idea. if i should go for it. and if there's anybody who'd be able to help in translating flash code into action script that ren'py can use.

if the admins say it's impossible, i won't do it. but i have a hunch that it shouldn't be impossible to do. it'll require some knowledge, but i highly doubt it'll be as complicated as just making an entire mini game from scratch out of action script in ren'py.

what are your thoughts, guys? all opinions and statements are welcome.

[jack_norton]

honestly I think is far easier to do those minigames in Renpy than Flash (AS3 is HORRIBLE language).

[Nebi]

Yes, Flash is a powerful development tool. With my limited knowledge I can only think of two ways that Flash could be used with Ren'Py games:

a. incorporating the Flash Player or Flash Lite - proprietary applications that allow you to view multimedia published under their file format - into the Ren'Py application. How, I do not know. Perhaps it is not impossible, but as PyTom already mentioned in a thread that you revived the first day you joined:

Flash is a proprietary engine, so I don't plan to include support for it. (Technically, it would be somewhere between very hard and impossible to do, since flash breaks many of the assumptions Ren'Py makes, like images being raster rather than vector based.)

Adobe, being a for-profit company, worked hard to dominate the marketplace and put in place a restrictive license that made it illegal for other software to play the Flash file format (SWF). While the restrictions have supposedly been relaxed since February 2009, I believe it will be a monumental task to implement, especially since Ren'Py is not-for-profit and its development is done on the creator's own free time; and

b. running Ren'Py in the browser with Java script as shown by a recent thread and switch between the visual novel and Flash Player as the situation requires. Since most browsers already have the Flash Player installed, it would remove the need to incorporate the Flash Player into Ren'Py itself as mentioned in the previous paragraph. Knowing how to pass variables between Flash, Java script, and Ren'Py will undoubtedly increase the knowledge required by a game developer and their team, which reinforces what you said about Ren'Py being easier to use.

Flash and Ren'Py are not just a little bit different; we are talking about a full-fledged, commercial development tool used to delivery rich internet applications and an open-source application built specifically for making and delivering visual novels. A team could very well put together a dynamic visual novel from start to finish with Adobe Flash and the Creative Suite. In this case the heart of your question appears to be, "Why use Ren'Py when you can use Flash?" For that you will have to speak with the other creators and the 'Why Ren'Py?' page.

[Anima]

i actually think it could work. why? because ren'py and flash share something in common and that's action script. it's true, flash's action script can differ slightly compared to ren'py and other action script programs. but most of it is the same. action script is action script. however small little differences there may be in names in the code, most of it is the same. if it wasn't then they wouldn't call it action script; flash would call it something else or ren'py would call it something else.

Where did you get the idea that Ren'Py uses action script? It's python based, or did I miss something entirely.

[LVUER]

RenPy doesn't use actionscript. It uses modified phyton language (though it's not phyton anymore, it's purely RenPy).

[pkt]

^ Python...Yeah it would be cool but more work than needed if you're stating from scratch.

[LVUER]

Oops, yeah, it should be Python, not Phyton. Typo in my post...

[0ion9]

Well, to be precise, it's more like Python with some syntactic sugar stapled on. Not sure about how the ATL works out, but everything else is basically syntactic sugar for writing something a bit more verbose in Python.
RenPy probably qualifies as a Domain Specific Language (DSL).. whether it's actually distinct from Python, though, seems ill-defined.

[PyTom]

The best way to describe Ren'Py is that it consists of several sub-languages (the script language, the screen language, and ATL), which include large portions of Python as part of those languages. For example, the script language "if" statement takes an expression, which can be any Python expression. There are also ways of shelling out to embedded Python.

Ren'Py then takes these languages and compiles/interprets them into a series of Python function and method calls. By providing an implementation of these function calls, we have a working visual novel.

Ren'Py is certainly a DSL. I'd argue it's distinct from Python, although Ren'Py benefits massively from the Python ecosystem.

[Watercolorheart]

Thanks for the dichotomy between Ren'Py and Python, I've always wondered...