Making "ghost pieces"

You can now make "ghost pieces" for your levels using the WebFCML editor. Ghost pieces float in the air and only allow water and wood rods to pass through them. To make a ghost dynamic rectangle, just set either the width or height of the rectangle to 0.

If you are not familiar with WebFCML, FCML is an easy to learn computer language used to describe a level (or design). Say you wanted a yellow square (a dynamic rectangle) that is located at the coordinates of 15 x 20 and is 400 units wide and 100 units high, and you wanted to write this in FCML. Well, it would look like this:

DynamicRect (15, 20), (400, 100), 0

The 0 at the end means that the object will be rotated 0 degrees.

To get started with WebFCML (an online editor that allows you to save levels in FCML), check out a tutorial that some Contraptionistas put together.

Even more updates

• New timeline view of a user's designs and levels (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/user?userId=66994 and http://fc.therisenrealm.com/usertimeline?userId=66994)
• Forum profile information (post count, AIM, WLM, etc.) and avatar now shown on user pages (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/user?userId=66994)
• The top right find box now does instant exact-match username lookups and redirects to the search page if you enter some text
• You can now rate both quality and difficulty ratings for a level (you could not do this before anywhere due to a bug in FC)
• You can now change your ratings
• Enhanced wireframe view is now on the wireframe tab (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/level?level ... #wireframe)
• Rating average, count, min., max., standard deviation, and breakdown information is now available for levels and designs (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/level?levelId=61324#ratings)
• Level ranks are now calculated up to 1000
• For unpublished levels, estimated ranks are shown
• Filesizes of levels and designs displayed on the statistics tab (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/level?level ... statistics)
• Level designers can look at the solutions report to see who has recently solved their levels
• The list of solutions to a level now has an age displayed for each design (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/designs?levelId=69691)
• Since it's possible to know whether a design is published, the number of other solutions on design pages no longer blindly subtracts 1 from the total number of published solutions

New updates

FC Resource hasn't changed much since last November, but a few updates have been pushed to the site in the last few days. Remember that these updates are unrelated to the version of FCR on the Fantastic Contraption website.

• User pages now show join date and some interesting account age information (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/user?userId=66994)
• Design pages now feature # of ratings, publish status, complete description and author information, save date, and solution status (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/design?designId=408412)
• Level pages now feature # of ratings, publish status, complete description and author information, and save date (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/level?levelId=69691)
• The number of ratings for levels and designs is now displayed throughout the site
• Level lists for users now display rating (including My Levels) (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/userlevels?userId=66994)
• Design lists for users now display the level for each one (including My Designs) (i.e. http://fc.therisenrealm.com/userdesigns?userId=66994)
• Subscriptions and an activity feed

Status of FC

FC Resource doesn't know what is up and nor can we fix it. If you followed a link from the FC website here, you followed an old link that persisted from before the integration of FC Resource (it was an external fan-made website) into FC. For that reason, we have nothing to do with errors with FC and we can't help you.

Read-only FCWiki

For the time being, FCWiki is back online in read-only mode. You won't be able to make any changes until FCWiki is available on Fantastic Contraption's servers. You wouldn't want your changes to be lost now, right?

Future of FC Resource

FC Resource, including the FCML editor and FCWiki, has been sold to inXile Entertainment and the files have been transferred as of last week. The plans have been in the works since last December, but it was pushed back due to the winter break and various delays. Although I am not aware of their intentions, it most likely means that you will be seeing the features on FC Resource as an official part of the game in the near future. Consequently, this means that there will be tighter integration and refined functionality — things that a third party such as myself cannot implement!

In the mean time, FC Resource will still be up at its current URL. FCWiki is momentarily inacessible, however, so that people don't make changes to it in the interim. When inXile makes their version live, I will most likely shutdown FC Resource. The FCML editor may still be up thereafter, but I make no guarantees.

On another note, your profiles on FC Resource were not transferred. You will have to transfer them yourself once their version goes live, provided that they keep that particular function of the website.

Calibrated Screenshots

The screenshot generation code for FC Resource was based upon measurements prepared from a level made for alignment purposes using the in-game level editor. Given the lack of accurate tools in the editor, this introduced errors into the screenshots. Therefore, using the FCML editor to create precise levels was a little difficult and tedious. Comparing the positions of objects using the screenshots was also an impossibility. However, the good news is that I've re-created this alignment level using FCML, resulting in much more accurate numbers. Although the screenshots are not yet flawless, they have become very accurate.

I discovered that static rectangles and dynamic rectangles are slightly smaller than their actual width and height numbers. The build and goal areas follow their dimensional numbers exactly. This, no doubt, led to some inaccurate screenshots!

The only thing left needing calibration is the display of the joints (grey circles). However, due to limitations in the drawing library that I am using, this is difficult.