Building games in Gluon is done by adding Components to the GameObjects in a Scene, and the use of external assets such as sounds, textures and the like is done by adding them as Assets to the project, and then referencing those Assets from the various Components which use them. The many components found in GluonEngine are described in the Components chapter under here. If you need anything that the existing Components don't already provide, you can add your own game logic as well by creating scripts, as described in Creating Game Logic.

Basics of Using Gluon Creator

The work flow of using Gluon Creator to create games is based on the idea that you should be able to use your mouse for as much of the work as possible. As such, adding an Asset to your project is a task done by dragging a file into the Project pane from your file browser (or alternatively by clicking the Add Asset... button in the toolbar). It will then be copied to the project folder, and be made available for use in your game.

Editing Assets which have been added to a game by this method can be done in two ways: Either by double-clicking on the Asset in the Project view or by right-clicking on it and selecting one of the Edit functions in the context menu. When possible, the Asset is opened in a tab in the central part of Creator. For example, double-clicking on a Texture Asset will open the image in an embedded viewer, which will allow you to open it in an external application for editing. Double-clicking on a Scripting Asset will open up the script in the embedded advanced text editor. For all Assets it is the case that Gluon Creator keeps track of changes to the file behind the Asset and ensures that the data in Gluon Creator is updated when the file changes.

To describe a scene in a game, you double-click on the appropriate Scene in the Project view, which causes it to be loaded and shown in the Scene pane, and in the View the camera view will show what the camera sees in the newly loaded scene. You can now edit this scene, by adding and removing GameObjects to the Scene, and by adding Components to those GameObjects.

To add a GameObject to the scene, click on the Add GameObject button on the toolbar, or by right-clicking on an existing GameObject and selecting New GameObject in the context menu. The function will add a new, empty GameObject to the Scene, and if you have an existing GameObject selected, the new one will be added as a child to the selected one. This allows you, as described in Gluon Basics, to build items for the game based on multiple GameObjects in a hierarchy, which all move along with each other.

Adding Components to a GameObject is done by dragging it out of the Components dock and dropping it on the GameObject you wish to add it to.

So that you can change the values for the various Components, selecting a GameObject in the Scene view will make the properties for that object and all the Components on it show up in the Properties view, which is a scrollable, categorized list of all the various properties.

One of the functions which will be performed with some regularity from the Properties view is that of setting references to various Assets, for example setting the texture of a SpriteRenderer, or the sound of a SoundEmitter. This is done by clicking on the ... button in the Properties view and selecting the appropriate item from the dialog which pops up. If there are no objects of this type, you will be informed of this issue.