Can we expect Storyboard "fadeOut" any time soon?

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Apologies if this effect already exists, but I don’t see any documentation on it…

Ansca, can we expect a built-in “fadeOut” or “overlay” effect for Storyboard in an upcoming release? This should simply be an effect, like the others, which triggers the “exitScene” listener on queue, then when it completes, it triggers the “destroyScene” listener.

The most obvious usage of “fadeOut” would be to fade out an “overlay” (a module which doesn’t interfere with the underlying screen) which was loaded via “fade”… i.e. a pause screen, overlay message box, etc. This would be about a million times more useful than “zoomOutInFadeRotate”, yet for some reason that one exists in Storyboard but “fadeOut” doesn’t.

I know there are some methods to workaround and jury-rig Storyboard for overlay fades, but I’m curious if a built-in “fadeOut” effect is upcoming in the next version of the API. Again, the purpose of this effect would be almost specifically for overlays… modules which are loaded OVER the current display module or group, with the ability to fade them back out and return to the original scene.

Sincerely,
Brent Sorrentino
Ignis Design
[import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 22835 reply_id: 322835[/import]

#2

Perhaps I’m not getting your exact intent but isn’t the effect you’re describing “crossFade,” where the destination fades in through the current one?

Then you can just manually destroy the scene upon entering the one you return to, if you really wanted to do that.
If you want to make an actual popup so you still see the current scene around it, just have a function in the scene that creates a new display group, inserts the popup objects into it, then inserts it into the current scene. Create an invisible background rect covering the whole screen, and set isHitTestable=true to catch any touch events outside it.

Then just create a close button, and use a transition to fade the group’s alpha to 0 with the desired easing effect, and use the onComplete function to remove the popup group once it’s done. [import]uid: 87138 topic_id: 22835 reply_id: 91216[/import]

#3

@ Revaerie,

Thanks for the input, but it’s not quite a “crossFade” I’m looking for, because crossFade will fade out the initial scene at the same time it brings in the new scene. Moreso, I’m hoping for an overlay effect, where you have 2 scenes (or 10 scenes, whatever), as such:

main.lua  
mainScene.lua --initial Storyboard scene loaded from "main.lua"  
pauseScreen.lua --overlay screen loaded from "mainScene.lua"

Then, “pauseScreen.lua” can be loaded… and unloaded… from “mainScene.lua” without any effect on the latter.

Apparently the best way to rig this effect currently is to actually use “crossFade” but in a certain Storyboard listener (can’t remember which one), you force-set the underlying scene back to alpha=1. I tinkered with this concept but was never able to get it working quite right; there always seemed to be some glitches in how/when the alphas were being set.

So, I’m hoping the next tune-up of Storyboard has a proper overlay effect. However, I can see some slight confusion in the phrasing, because “overlayOut” or whatever it might be called isn’t really a “gotoScene()” effect… it’s not actually *going* to a new scene, but rather just clearing the overlay scene with a fade. Still, I think it makes sense to just bundle it into the Storyboard “gotoScene()” function because the core principle behind it… a fade effect which triggers the various listeners… is the same as all the other effects.

Brent
[import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 22835 reply_id: 91306[/import]

#4

Scene effects for overlay scenes *do not* affect the underlying, currently active scene. So to achieve the effect you’re looking for, simply use the “fade” effect when calling storyboard.showOverlay() as well as when you call storyboard.hideOverlay() – and the underlying scene will not be affected. [import]uid: 52430 topic_id: 22835 reply_id: 107507[/import]