Make spinning glow rings

In this tutorial, we will show a step-by-step on how to create glowing rings spinning technique which will allow many creative possibilities.

In order to get the rings to spawn out of nowhere together like that we will need to create a preset.

  • ‘Press L’ to bring up your asset ‘library’ and search for ‘light’

The glow ring uses an asset called ‘Light Jo’ which is a long glowing stick. If you don’t have this asset you can click on the Marketplace button to find it in the store. Once added to your library you will need to restart Game Maker to see it.

  • Select down the asset ‘Light Jo’ and add the ‘Bird Behaviour’ to it.

  • Set ‘Flying Speed = 3’

  • Set ‘Fly Min Width and Fly Max Width = 1.8’

  • Set ‘ Fly min Height and Fly Max Height = 2’

It’s important these settings are correct otherwise it will come out with different effects. I recommend playing around with the settings after you complete the tutorial to see what you can discover with it.

Next we need to locate the ‘Transform’ settings as this is key to getting this to work. You need to leave the ‘Logic’ section to see it.

It makes the job easier if you make the ‘Transform Position’ of ‘X ‘and ‘Z’ rounded numbers. See the image below.

  • Duplicate the ‘Light Jo’ asset using CTRL + D

  • Select the newly duplicated ‘Light Jo’ and change the ‘Transform Rotation’ on the ‘Y’ to ‘60’

  • Change the ‘Transform Position’ of ‘X ‘and ‘Z’ the same as the first ‘Light Jo’ In our example ‘X = 42’ and ‘Z =61’

  • Duplicate the ‘Light Jo’ asset using CTRL + D again.

  • Select the newly duplicated ‘Light Jo’ and change the ‘Transform Rotation’ on the ‘Y’ to ‘120’

  • Change the ‘Transform Position’ of ‘X ‘and ‘Z’ the same as the first ‘Light Jo’ In our example ‘X = 42’ and ‘Z =61’

Repeat this until you have 6 ‘Light Jo’ total. Each time you add ‘+60’ to the ‘Y’ ‘Transform Rotation’ and keep the ‘Transform Position’ of ‘X’ and ‘Z’ the same on all the ‘Light Jo’ by the end of it you should have this result.

Give it a test, if you got all the settings right it should look like this.

NOTE: Sometimes the ‘Bird Behaviour’ changes the value on the Min and Max height. Double check those settings if your result looks different.

The glow ring works and this might be all you needed it to do. You can do all sorts of cool ideas with this technique. Example: Use stars or birds flying around someone’s head to show they are dizzy.

To summon rings you need to parent them to an asset and make that into a preset. Let's see how this is done.

  • Press L to open the library, search and place down a ‘NumPad Switch’

  • Move the location of the ‘NumPad Switch’ to be roughly in the middle of the ‘Light Jo’

  • Under ‘Physics’ set it to ‘No Collisions’

  • Drag the ‘NumPad Switch’ underground about 3 blocks. You can manually drag it or use the ‘Transform Position’ on the ‘Y’ and ‘-3’ from the number displayed. Either way works.

The reason being is in the Game Maker the NumPad can be seen if it's on the surface and you can’t make it invisible otherwise all the assets attached to it will become invisible too.

The ‘NumPad Switch’ is now in position, it’s time to parent the ‘light Jo’ to it.

  • Click the ‘Hierarchy Button’ in the bottom left-hand corner

NOTE: This should bring up a list of your assets used. If you don’t see them or it looks bugged just save your game and exit back to the home page. Reloading the map fixes the Hierarchy list.

  • Using the ‘Hierarchy list’ click the ‘Light Jo’ ‘Target icon’ (first icon on the right of its name.) Click and drag it on top of the ‘NumPadSwitch’ name in the same menu. Do this for all 6 ‘Light Jo’ it should look like the screenshot below.

Let's turn this into a ‘Preset’

  • In the ‘Hierarchy list’ find the ‘NumPadSwitch’ we just linked all the ‘Light Jo’ to.

  • Click the ‘Hamburger icon’ (the third icon on the right of its name)

  • Click ‘To Preset’

  • Click ‘<Create new Preset>’ then click the ‘Enter icon’

That’s it! We made a glow ring ‘Preset’ which can be summoned with the ‘Loot component’ on any LAND file. Let’s see an example of how to use it.

  • Put down a ‘NumPadSwitch’ where you want to summon the Glow ring ‘Preset’.

  • Add ‘Health Component’ and ‘Loot Component’

  • Change ‘Health Component’ settings ‘Death Delay = -2’ and ‘Message to kill = Kill1’

  • Change ‘Loot Component’ settings ‘Preset’ and select the glowing ring preset we created earlier. (Name and Icon may be: NumPadSwitch)

Lastly, we need something to trigger the Kill message we set on the last ‘NumPadSwitch’ we just made, so it can die and drop the loot we set, in this case, is our glow ring.

  • Place another ‘NumPadSwitch’ to act as our button.

  • Give it the ‘Button Behaviour’

  • set ‘Message to send’ to ‘Kill1’

That’s it. Now you can push the button to trigger the death of the asset which summons/drops the loot we set. Duplicate the ‘NumPadSwitch’ we set on the ground with the ‘Health Component’ if you want multiple glow rings. Move the positions around.

This technique can be used for so many different things, the possibilities are limitless.

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