Topics

21

Editor Development / Cursror flickers when mouse moves over script window + windows font size issue

« on: 19 Jul 2013, 14:49 »

Hello,

I think this is probably a known issue, but on a new laptop it's much more distracting than it used to be. When the mouse cursor is in motion over a script window it flickers between the pointer and the beam cursor in a very annoying way. Weirdly, I can stop this happening by changing the beam cursor in windows to the one with a white outline. I searched but couldn't find this mentioned, so I thought it was worth posting.

Also as a side note: The dialogue window in the editor does not work very well with Win 7's text sizes above 100%. The left column is too narrow and needs to be resized, but it still doesn't fit properly. If the same layout is used in the new betas, it's worth looking into because (I believe) 125% is the default font size for systems with a 1920x1080+ monitor attached at the time of installation. (And thanks to a windows bug, changing default font sizes doesn't work properly in this situation without editing the registry).

I hope those notes are of some use.

22

Engine Development / Crash Report (running through Wine on Mac Lion)

« on: 17 Jun 2013, 00:27 »

Hello,

I've had some success running an AGS game on Macs using Wineskin (http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/). However I've just had a crash reported on the older Lion OS.

0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP - 0x4530827F; program pointer is -1893, ACI version 3.21.1115, gtags (1065,275)

I don't know how to interpret this information. Would anyone have any suggestions?

If I can find out what it means, I might be able to customise Wineskin to fix it.

23

Engine Development / Bad Performance with Self-Compiled Acwin.exe

« on: 05 Jun 2013, 18:03 »

To investigate this I'm trying to compile Engine.sln in Visual Studio 2008 (Express). I have installed DirectX SDK (June 2010), and told it to include Common and Common/libinclude as advised here

It gets a fair way through the build, successfully building Common.Lib and Compiler.Lib, then gives this error:

1>fatal error C1900: Il mismatch between 'P1' version '20080116' and 'P2' version '20070207'
1>LINK : fatal error LNK1257: code generation failed

Googling the error suggests that some library has been built with a different version. But most of the remedies involve installing SP1 (which isn't possible for the Express Version) or rebuilding the offending static library - which I don't know how to do.

Can you offer any suggestions for how I can get around this?

24

Engine Development / Better Widescreen Borders - Testing Needed!

« on: 04 Jun 2013, 19:38 »

Hello! I've just moved to a new computer and widescreen borders are no longer working in my game. I seem to be having this problem.

From DebugView:

[2832] AGS: Widescreen side borders: game resolution: 800 x 600; desktop resolution: 1920 x 1080
[2832] AGS: Widescreen side borders: gfx card does not support suitable resolution. will attempt 1066 x 600 anyway
[2832] AGS: Attempt to switch gfx mode to 1066 x 600 (32-bit)
[2832] AGS: Failed, resolution not supported

What I'm wondering is, why doesn't AGS try standard resolutions like 1366x768 or 1280x720 and add borders on the top and bottom, as well as the left and right?

Like the first, instead of the second screen:


I did try to tinker with the AGS source code, but Visual Studio 2008 doesn't support Solution Folders, so I couldn't open it. (I probably would have been stumped anyway, but I'm keen to find a solution for this!)

Any help or suggestions would be hugely appreciated!

25

General Discussion / The Long Overdue Thatcher's Dead Thread!

« on: 09 Apr 2013, 00:33 »

And Tony Benn is still alive! Finally, a victory for the left!

26

Editor Development / (SOLVED!) Replacing Sprites from Sourcefile - Alter Sourcefile Path?

« on: 04 Mar 2013, 10:31 »

I know this issue has come up many times before... but as I start to update animations for Nelly 2, I'm reminded of what a ridiculous waste of time it is to manually replace hundreds of frames of animation over and over again. (I seem to remember it was a major factor in pushing Theo away from AGS towards a custom engine for The Journey Down, so it is a big issue).

Can anyone suggest something I can do to make it more efficient? Is there a way to create an editor plugin which acts like an action in photoshop and repeats the reloading process for a selection of sprites?

I'm afraid I don't have the programming knowledge to just deal with this myself, but I would like to help if someone could suggest a possible solution?

27

AGS Games in Production / Nelly Cootalot II: The Fowl Fleet

« on: 01 Mar 2013, 22:25 »

******
26/04/14 Sadly, I've had to shift production if this game to Unity in order to achieve multi-platform delivery & high-resolution.
******

Nelly Cootalot II: The Fowl Fleet

Nelly on Twitter  |  www.nellycootalot.com  |  Nelly on Facebook

Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet Kickstarter!

The Story
Pirate heroine Nelly Cootalot is on the trail of Baron Widebeard, from the South Seas to the icy north. The nefarious Baron has kidnapped a fleet of birds and hypnotised them to do his bidding. What is he planning? Can he be stopped? In what way is a frozen volcano involved? These questions may or may not be answered as Nelly uncovers the secret of William Bloodbeard's final voyage.

This game is a sequel to Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! It will be a commercial release, bigger than the original with richer graphics, more remote islands to visit and many outlandish characters to meet. It will also be both pointier and clickier.

In this game, Nelly will heroically:

• Race aristocrats for fun and profit
• Be immortalised in folk song
• Join the Merchant Navy *shudder*
• Pilot an airship.
• Uncover Bloodbeard’s Lost Treasure
• Take advantage of a short-sighted old man
• Lie to strangers with no consequences

Crowdfunding Campaign
In order to complete this game, I am throwing myself bodily upon the crowdfunding bandwagon. The campaign is now live: Nelly Cootalot: The Fowl Fleet Kickstarter! I'm now working on a playable demo, so watch out for updates on Nelly's website, and by following Nelly on Twitter and Facebook.

Screenshots

Nelly washes up on Vogel Island and meets Sebastian the Coot


In the workshop of Rackham the Birdman


On the trail of Captain Rehab Sea Shanty Town


Looking for something special in Lady Chang's Junk Shop

Progress
Plot & Puzzles: 80%
Background Art: 80%
Character Art & Animation: 50%
Scripting: 25%
Voice Acting(?): 0%

History
I released the original Nelly game in 2007, if the word 'original' can be applied to a pirate-themed adventure game. Back then no one on the AGS forums could grow a beard and 640x480 was considered hi-res. These days the forums are thronged with facial hair, and 640x480 is still considered hi-res.

Since 2007 I have been gradually working on this sequel, beset by jobs and distracting noises. Now I feel like I have reached the point of no return. I'm hoping a crowdfunding campaign will give me the push I need to complete the game, and stop having to think up nautical puns on the bus.

Please let me know your thoughts!

- Ali

28

Editor Development / Bug Report - crash when *running* game

« on: 18 Dec 2012, 22:34 »

For the past few days I've been getting this error quite frequently when compiling (Running 3.2.1):

An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x0044EF47 ; program pointer is -1893, ACI version 3.21.1115, gtags (159,135)

It crashes, and then after that it never successfully compiles until I restart my computer. Other programs run very slowly sometimes too, even after quitting AGS.

Can anyone help? It's getting annoying to have to keep restarting!

29

General Discussion / Laptop and OS advice?

« on: 17 Dec 2012, 22:48 »

Hi Guys,

I'm wondering if you can offer some advice on buying a laptop. My work is mostly video editing and animation - Avid, After Effects, Photoshop, so everyone I work with is on a mac. I want a laptop so I can be more flexible on freelance jobs, but I'd also like to work on AGS games while commuting. Which I would rule out mac (right?)

I'm not desperate to pay for or use a Windows OS, and not being able to read/write to mac-formatted drives is a real problem. So I was leaning towards something Linux-y, but would that rule out AGS and Adobe software?

Any advice would be helpful!

- Al

30

Advanced Technical Forum / Sub-pixel Positioning Question - Smooth Scroll / Parallax (solved)

« on: 26 Aug 2012, 14:12 »

Some of you may be familiar with my smooth scrolling module: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=33142.0

I'm using it to create an ocean wave effect - the camera going up and down gently. However, the module doesn't allow very slow movement. When movement gets near to 1 pixel per second it looks very jerky, like stair-step aliasing but for movement. To get around that, I have a line which cuts off the movement when it gets slow:

Code: Adventure Game Studio

1. if (Centring == false && ScrollSpeedY < 0.7 && ScrollSpeedY > -0.7) ScrollSpeedY = 0.0;

Now, I can create a passable ocean effect by temporarily changing those 0.7s to 0.3s. But it's still quite jerky and jerkiness is not what the smooth scroll module is about! The jerkiness is accentuated by the parallax effect, because when the camera makes a single 1 pixel jump, the foreground objects make a 1 or more pixel jump in the opposite direction.

What I'm wondering about is whether, what with all the AGS changes afoot, there will be any prospect of setting an object's position, or even the viewport, using floats rather than ints? Or might there be a cosmetic way around this which I haven't considered?

I would appreciate any input!

31

Advanced Technical Forum / Delete / Overwrite save games not working in win 7? [SOLVED]

« on: 09 Jul 2012, 13:06 »

Hello,

Perhaps I'm being an idiot, but deleting and overwriting save games doesn't seem to work on win 7. I imagine it must be a permissions issue with the windows save game folder. Deleting save games simply does nothing, but overwiting creates a file named this: agssave.-01 (This is the new save game, not the old one.)

I couldn't find if this is a known issue, is there a way around it?

- Al

32

Beginners' Technical Questions / Max save games - 50?

« on: 06 May 2012, 18:18 »

I'm updating an old save/load script, and I wanted to know if the 50 save games limit was still around. I searched but I couldn't find an up-to-date answer.

- Ali

33

Advanced Technical Forum / 32 bit inventory crosshairs don't work - bug?

« on: 24 Mar 2012, 21:38 »

I know this is small fry in the context of AGS development, but using a crosshair image imported from PNG doesn't seem to work.

It's been posted about before and was 'fixed' by using a gif instead. But for nice anti-aliasing the only option is to add the crosshair into the cursor image for every item. Which is a bit cumbersome.

34

General Discussion / Adventure games are fun and historical atrocities are sad.

« on: 28 Nov 2011, 14:27 »

Adventure games are lots of fun.

Historical atrocities are profoundly sad.

Those are my opinions and I don't care if they're too 'controversial' for you. Lock this thread if you like, but I won't allow my well-researched beliefs to be suppressed!

35

Critics' Lounge / AGS Awards BG - Volume vs Linework

« on: 27 Nov 2011, 22:22 »

I recently drew a backdrop for the AGS award ceremony, and I wanted to use it as a chance to try a different technique for colouring and brushwork.

(Click for full size)


At full resolution (1280x960) it's a bit soft. I tried that because of something I read Loominous say while researching other folk's techniques.

I also looked very hard at Zyndikate's Well Backdrop and Theo's Harbour.

I noticed that volume and shading are much more prominent than linework. They seem to use quite hard-edged brushes with bold strokes.

That's not something I'm very comfortable with. I've never painted non-digitally and I tend to depend on colouring-in outlines rather than capturing volume, light, shade and texture. Here's some examples:

(Click for full size)




(Click for full size)

And more in my portfolio: www.abeckettking.com/illustration.html

I took three attempts at colouring the AGS Awards backdrop, and the one I posted was the closest to the style I was aiming for. However I still think there's a lot of softness in the shading and a lack of boldness and energy in the brush-strokes. Part of the overall fuzziness at full-scale is the lack of hard linework, which is normally what I'd rely upon.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the volume/linework issue. As well as any tips on what photoshop brushes you find most useful.

36

General Discussion / *Festive* Dependency on AGS Forums Revealed... *Ho Ho Ho*

« on: 21 Nov 2011, 20:04 »

In the last few days a fog descended on the UK, seemingly engulfing the AGS forums. It made me realise that I check the boards embarrassingly frequently.

I hope the rest of you used the down-time as an opportunity for reflection and quiet meditation.

37

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Narok - action/adventure in Blender 3D

« on: 01 Oct 2011, 00:42 »

Hi guys, I've just discovered a Russian game called Narok:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?219884-quot-Narok-quot-finished-blender-game&highlight=narok

It's an interesting proof-of concept as far as action/adventures in Blender go, the idea of which was discussed a little while ago. It's pretty cinematic and a lot of work has clearly gone into it.

I have reservations (including the walking animations and an off-putting opening puzzle) but it's a step in an interesting direction.

Thought you might be interested!

38

General Discussion / The Library of Burned Books - 23 hours left!

« on: 19 Sep 2011, 19:43 »

Hello everyone,

I'm studying an MA in filmmaking at the London Film School, and I'm raising funds for my graduation film through IndieGoGo.

It's called The Library of Burned Books. Please have a look at the pitch video, it has jokes and me looking like an idiot on Hampstead Heath.

Here is a propagandist poster from the film:

If you like the pitch, please support this project by sharing the link with any wealthy uncles you may have. And, if you feel compelled to do so, by donating money.

Other films/drawings I've made are here: www.abeckettking.com

Thank you,

Ali

39

General Discussion / London Riots - OR - What's your favourite thing about Hitler?

« on: 08 Aug 2011, 18:20 »

It's all getting a bit smashy here in London.

I wanted to say hello to other London-dwelling AGSers. It's quiet where me and Nelly live, but she works in Brixton (where it's even less quiet than usual) and lots of our friends are in Hackney.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248

It's a real shame, because these are riots without a real motive. Some people are venting legitimate frustration, but there's no ideology or meaningful protest. Just a lot of people taking advantage of an opportunity for violence and looting.

On a side note, I'm off to Greece tomorrow (they know how to riot there, I'm going to pick up tips).

- Al

40

General Discussion / Do you know where your towel is?

« on: 25 May 2011, 18:54 »

No, I'm not competing with Calin on the non sequitur front... I just discovered that today is Towel Day, a celebration of the life and works of Douglas Adams. I am currently sitting on a chair with my towel (though I must admit it's just a coincidence and the towel was here before I found out about towel day).

Dualnames posted about it back in 2009, but we seemed to have forgotten about it since then. The shame! This year the guys behind it have produced an animated short demonstrating why a towel 'is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have':

Spread the word!