Recent posts

#1

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Animation options.

Last post by Squinky - Today at 00:09:40

Hey folks,

 I've used AGS before but it was a really long time I ago. I'm getting the itch to play with it again but there is one element I'd like to figure out before I start.

Animation. Back in the day I did pixel stuff very badly. I can draw ok, but I just don't have the patience to do pixel by pixel animation. Has anyone used these newer programs to add in bones that allow you to animate easier? Would you recommend them? Last time I looked they used flash style art primarily, and I had troubles cleaning edges.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

#2

AGS Engine & Editor Releases / Re: AGS 4.0 - Alpha 22 for pub...

Last post by Crimson Wizard - Yesterday at 23:33:45

Well I was thinking about :

- importing a font file
- create a button
- give this button the font you just imported
- choose the size of the font for THIS button (and eventually its style if possible)
- allow to manipulate font's property for each button or things using texts (labels etc...), such as the font's size, dynamically in scripts. My best example for it is about translations : if you have a button with the text "ABCD" inside, and when you change translation the texts becomes "ABCDEFGHIJ", the button could be too small to have the text properly inside, so you could just change the font's size to fit the text there.

Giving each control additional font settings will be suboptimal IMO, not only because that's going to be an extra hassle to configure font on each control, but also because the font renderers must cache the glyphs (letters) in each separate size and style (they don't load font once and then display resized, they actually precreate letters in each size). If there will be a setting for each button, label, etc, that may give users an idea that they may ignore the number of font variants, and they will eventually boost the amount of cached fonts. So I'd rather not do that.

I'd rather keep a single "Font" property on things, and have all settings in a Font object. You can already have any number of Fonts from a single file in AGS 4, where you import a font file once, and create any number of font variants from that font file. We may have a "style" added later as well, if we support attaching multiple style font files as a single "font file source".

This leaves a translation problem, and ability to create Font objects at runtime, either as a command in script, or an instruction in the translation file. That's something that has to be developed from ground up, as right now there's no font structure in script at all, nor a collection of fonts that one could iterate, only numbers. But that should be feasible in theory.

[BARBARIAN vs. ROBOT]

#3

Completed Game Announcements / BvR - No Copy Protection Versi...

Last post by Knoodn - Yesterday at 23:30:17

Hello adventurers.

There is a new version of "BARBARIAN vs. ROBOT" available.
This release removes the copy protection at the start of the game – in an appropriate way.

Many thanks to Morgan for the idea.
And greetings to the "Special-Purpose Algorithm Machine" crew for the realisation.

The original version is still available for download.

AGS Database Entry:
BARBARIAN vs. ROBOT

#4

AGS Engine & Editor Releases / Re: AGS 4.0 - Alpha 22 for pub...

Last post by Baguettator - Yesterday at 22:29:41

In the latest AGS 4 you can import only 1 font file and create any number of fonts from it, each with different settings. Is that what you are referring to?

Well I was thinking about :

- importing a font file
- create a button
- give this button the font you just imported
- choose the size of the font for THIS button (and eventually its style if possible)
- allow to manipulate font's property for each button or things using texts (labels etc...), such as the font's size, dynamically in scripts. My best example for it is about translations : if you have a button with the text "ABCD" inside, and when you change translation the texts becomes "ABCDEFGHIJ", the button could be too small to have the text properly inside, so you could just change the font's size to fit the text there.

#5

General Discussion / Re: Your thoughts on A.I. art ...

Last post by LimpingFish - Yesterday at 21:21:42

This sounds like the next speculative bubble.

https://gizmodo.com/wall-streets-ai-bubble-is-worse-than-the-1999-dot-com-bubble-warns-a-top-economist-2000630487

It's much worse, apparently.

#6

Competitions & Activities / Re: Fortnightly Writing Compet...

Last post by brushfe - Yesterday at 18:39:26

Oh man, I blew it! Sorry everyone - I didn't realize that rule! I can see how admins could abuse it (I wish I was smart enough to have thought of that...)

Any admin votes will be void. Though I imagine that won't be a problem with the excellent stories you've all told. And thank you for the great feedback all the same!

Apologies to you all @Sinitrena @Baron @Mandle again!

[ISSUE #7 : Catastrophic failure]

#7

Editor Development / Re: My personal list of proble...

Last post by Monsieur OUXX - Yesterday at 18:26:43

ISSUE #7 : Catastrophic failure

This issue is probably not new, but reveals an old problem of AGS :
- I had an exception while saving the game. This time, the "out of memory" issue hit the JsonWriter.
- I told myself : "Nevermind, I'll close it and re-open it".
- When I re-opened AGS and the game, I had a message that over a thousand sprites were missing.
- I exited the game without saving and did a copy of my game folder.
- Then, I re-opened AGS and I helped the game going back to a healthy state by doing "File -> Restore all sprites from source".
- But then the sprites themselves were of course still missing.

NONE OF THE BACKUP FILES HELPED:
  - game.agf.bak was the exact same as game.agf
  - acsprset.spr had been partly overwritten by the corrupt data (incomplete file)

I'm not allowing myself to panic yet because I still have the files from before my AGS 4 upgrade. EDIT: I used the acsprset.spr file straight from after my AGS 3.6 upgrade, and it worked directly.

But I think this highlights the need of a better recovery mechanism :
-  If the saving crashes in the middle, then the critical files SHOULD NOT be overwritten. They should be swapped only after the save is successful.
- Or, at least, there should be more than one backup file generated. It's no longer 2005, we could have 10 of them (I'm exaggerating to make a point) and it would still use close to no resources.

#8

Editor Development / Re: My personal list of proble...

Last post by Monsieur OUXX - Yesterday at 18:19:43

So, I did some tests and can confirm that this starts happening after "Watch Panel" gets enabled. It even keeps happening if I hide "Watch Panel", the only way to make it stop is to restart the Editor.

Not that you need it, but I can confirm that you're on the right track, because to my great surprise the issue DIDN'T happen to me for a few minutes, and I noticed that the panels being displayed were not the same as before (I might have closed one of them by accident). I tried investigating it by opening and closing some panels but couldn't find the correct state of open/closed panels (no wonder, if like you said it can't be fixed until restart).

#9

Editor Development / Re: My personal list of proble...

Last post by Crimson Wizard - Yesterday at 17:35:12

I have some kind of hunch that it could also be a concurrency issue. Something along the lines of: "the startup process of the game overlaps its immediate interruption. For example: The new compiler switches to the Log Panel or the Watch Panel just as the game ends and the Editor tries to display the window. One of the two processes wins the race, and the window gets closed".

So, I did some tests and can confirm that this starts happening after "Watch Panel" gets enabled. It even keeps happening if I hide "Watch Panel", the only way to make it stop is to restart the Editor.

("Log Panel" does not cause this.)

Both the error popup and watch panel are based on editor->engine communication channel. The problem may occur on either side.

#10

Competitions & Activities / Re: Fortnightly Writing Compet...

Last post by Sinitrena - Yesterday at 17:15:55

@brushfe

Spoiler

Baron already mentioned that the admin usually doesn't post an entry (or doesn't have it available t vote for). There's one more point why we have this rule: It's very often that we get ties in the voting round, simply because we tend to get few votes here, making it necessary to have one neutral party to cast a final tie-breaking vote - the admin. It wouldn't be good to have someone casting a tie-breaking vote involving their own entry.

All that aside, I found your story fascinating. I'm sure most people have played the Who reaches the imaginary goal first at least at some point in their life (at least as children), and you take it to the extreme. The situation gets really into the narrotors head, so much so that he gets a psychosis - or we're dealing with some kind of supernatural event? Obviously, the story doesn't really explain what is going on, as we stay in the character's head. It's a thought-provoking story. Well done.

[close]

@Baron

Spoiler

This is a good story but I think it kind of misses the mark on the topic. Sure, there are decisions, as there are in just about any story, but I'm missing the "looking down the road not taken" part a bit.
That aside, it's an interesting story about a ghost protecting her home at all costs and a police force that is incapable of dealing with said ghost. The personal connection between the detective and the suspects adds a nice layer to the situation.

[close]

@Mandle

Spoiler

This one was a bit confusing in parts because we jump around between dreams and reality and they are basically described the same way. But the unusual talent of the protagonist gives a great way to explore the topic. I honestly don't get why he decided to act on his dreams - to his knowledge nothing too bad would happen if he didn't, and his dreams are utterly random, involving complete strangers.
The explanation of the "crime" are a bit convoluted. I see what you were going for, but maybe leave out two or three steps?
Overall, my favorite this round.

[close]