Potential Purchaser
Forum › Makinom Support
Hello, I am seriously considering purchasing Makinom. In fact I have it in my cart on the Unity Asset store but I am a little hesitant. So I figured I'd ask my questions here. Sorry about the length of text. :-)
My background is in development (I've been using C# since .NET 1.0 along with other languages.) I have been developing for over 20 years professionally but not as a game developer. I am jumping into Unity right now and I have some Udemy courses I am going through. For the most part Unity seems very logical. Anyways, I was looking for someway to speed development since I will only be developing in the evenings and a bit on the weekends. Usually in the evening I'll just pull out my laptop while I am sitting in bed so I though a Visual Designer could create a more relaxing and still productive experience.
I did read through all the How-To's and started one tutorial (unfortunately started that before reading the How'To's so it didn't make too much sense at first.) I like that it is very easy to create custom nodes. I still need to learn the Unity way of things and what exactly all the machines are used for, etc. Anyways, here are my questions. (I apologize if some of the questions sound a little stupid but I am still learning the Unity way of doing things.)
1. How does Makinom support different screen resolutions and orientations? For example if I want to create a game that works on all devices from one code base?
2. How flexible is the Menu UI creation? Can it support any UI type? Question #1 is pertinent here, as well.
3. Is it easy to integrate other assets? Some I bought are DOTween, VoxelMax, Silver: Advanced AI Combat Engine, Actor Controller (advanced character controller.) I would love to tie these into Makinom. Any custom nodes I create that others may benefit from I would be happy to share if I purchase this.
4. Do you think that a proficient programmer (which I am) could still benefit from this? Would it speed up my development (I figured I'd probably need to write several custom nodes to accomplish everything I want but then those would be reusable.) For example, could you create a game faster in Makinom than if you did it the traditional way in Unity.
5. Do you plan on adding more custom nodes for: platformers (so its an easier platform construction kit), "endless runners", in app purchases, Unity Ads, Game Centers, etc.? Of course, what you don't plan on adding I can do myself.
6. Could someone like me add functionality to the editor that others could benefit from? (I may be new to game development but programming is easy)
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
-Steve
My background is in development (I've been using C# since .NET 1.0 along with other languages.) I have been developing for over 20 years professionally but not as a game developer. I am jumping into Unity right now and I have some Udemy courses I am going through. For the most part Unity seems very logical. Anyways, I was looking for someway to speed development since I will only be developing in the evenings and a bit on the weekends. Usually in the evening I'll just pull out my laptop while I am sitting in bed so I though a Visual Designer could create a more relaxing and still productive experience.
I did read through all the How-To's and started one tutorial (unfortunately started that before reading the How'To's so it didn't make too much sense at first.) I like that it is very easy to create custom nodes. I still need to learn the Unity way of things and what exactly all the machines are used for, etc. Anyways, here are my questions. (I apologize if some of the questions sound a little stupid but I am still learning the Unity way of doing things.)
1. How does Makinom support different screen resolutions and orientations? For example if I want to create a game that works on all devices from one code base?
2. How flexible is the Menu UI creation? Can it support any UI type? Question #1 is pertinent here, as well.
3. Is it easy to integrate other assets? Some I bought are DOTween, VoxelMax, Silver: Advanced AI Combat Engine, Actor Controller (advanced character controller.) I would love to tie these into Makinom. Any custom nodes I create that others may benefit from I would be happy to share if I purchase this.
4. Do you think that a proficient programmer (which I am) could still benefit from this? Would it speed up my development (I figured I'd probably need to write several custom nodes to accomplish everything I want but then those would be reusable.) For example, could you create a game faster in Makinom than if you did it the traditional way in Unity.
5. Do you plan on adding more custom nodes for: platformers (so its an easier platform construction kit), "endless runners", in app purchases, Unity Ads, Game Centers, etc.? Of course, what you don't plan on adding I can do myself.
6. Could someone like me add functionality to the editor that others could benefit from? (I may be new to game development but programming is easy)
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
-Steve
Post edited by SteveP on
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BTW, I took a look at some of the games being made in the ORK framework. Very impressive.
1) Makinom's UI system (which supports Unity's legacy GUI and new UI/UGUI) automatically handles scaling for different resolutions. The settings for this can be found in Menus > Menu Settings.
2) Any UI system may be a bit broad, but I'd say it can support a lot.
Depending on what you're after, there are different solutions. E.g. for menus like a start game menu or in-game list menus, it's best to use Choice dialogues (i.e. the Show Dialogue node) in machines to handle menus.
For other things, there are HUDs - e.g. displaying health or points, virtual controls, etc.
3) Usually it's an easy task - many things can be used out of the box by using the Function nodes (more or less using reflection to just call a function of a class). In other cases you can just create a custom node for this (see this scripting tutorial for details).
4) Yes - unless that kind of workflow is not your thing :D
Generally, Makinom handles a lot of things under the hood that you'd otherwise need to add yourself, which can get tedious for simple tasks. It's built for reusability and fast results/changes.
At first, it might take a little longer to do things than just code them yourself, but after working with it for some time, you'll surely be able to speed up your development, especially when creating often used tasks as reusable schematics.
5) Yes, that's planned. There's already been a lot added since the initial release, and I plan on adding more, either added to Makinom directly or as a (free) plugin (e.g. the movie texture nodes are only a plugin, because they're not supported on iOS).
6) Well, the editor itself is closed source (but adepts to new settings). In form of new nodes or plugins (the full version contains a plugin example) that's possible :)
And yes, you're able to use Makinom on several PCs/Macs, as long as it's not shared with another person - in that case that person would also need a license (or use the free version).
For getting started with Makinom, I'd recommend reading a bit about the editor (especially the node editor), the machine and schematic concepts and variables (which you probably will have no problem with due to your programming background). Afterwards, just start with some of the simple game tutorials for some hands-on experience.
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As far as #6 I was referring to custom nodes. If I get to grips with the flow of creating games in Makinom I'll definitely share what custom nodes I can.
Thanks!
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As a non-ORK user I'll have to figure out a way to handle that within Makinom.
If you're enjoying my products, updates and support, please consider supporting me on patreon.com!