Gathering feature suggestions for the Engine

[MurrayL]

I'd love to be able to use Switch/Case statements instead of enormous blocks of if/else if/else if...

[jannar85]

Hi. I've been searching the forum for a while, but haven't gotten the question I have answered.
What sort of resolutions do AGS support now? Has it come as far as it's supporting 1280x800 or 1920x1080?
If not, how much time are we looking on before this is added?

I meant I noticed a AGS HD build a short while ago, but can't really find it anymore.
I hope I wasn't dreaming about it

Is there also some sort of daily build of the engine? And where can the latest, up-to-date manual be found?

[dbuske]

https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/
You can get 1280x720 with skygoblinags. See the above link.
Get the master version tarball and it can be opened with 7Z

Here is a direct link. https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/skygoblinags/trees/master  The download is on the right side of the page.
Install the regular ags first and then copy the bin contents to the ags directory.
you have to start a new game to use the new custom resolution.

[jannar85]

Thanks! How will this affect other builds of AGS? Does it work with Android and so on?

[Crimson Wizard]

Thanks! How will this affect other builds of AGS? Does it work with Android and so on?

These changes are not used in JJS ports. Have no idea about other ports (if they exist).
As far as I know (I recall build author stated that), in order to make those custom resolutions work, author made a number of "hacks", rather than rewrote AGS graphic system the clean way. Probably it supports only one resolution and not support any other (even lower ones), but people who used it will know better.

[Calin Leafshade]

That branch, even with AJA hacks, is pretty broken. Barely floating will behave very oddly if you run it in a window for instance and do stuff like minimize the window or alt-tab.

The best thing to do is to wait for the problem to be tackled properly by JJS, Crimson, et al. Which they should do ASAP btw :>

[dbuske]

I am using the SkygoblinAGS version and it works in all resolutions.
I am using 1280x720
I think it should be added to AGS for a new version.
The code would have to be checked and rewritten if necessary.

[Crimson Wizard]

I am using the SkygoblinAGS version and it works in all resolutions.
I am using 1280x720
I think it should be added to AGS for a new version.
The code would have to be checked and rewritten if necessary.

Yes, there are plans to add this functionality to AGS.

[Knox]

Would it be possible/easy enough to increase the Custom Properties limit, or remove limits on that?

I think the limit is 30 right now. Something like 50-100 could be cool

Ok Im guessing this request could be merged into this issue?
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=295.0

[Scavenger]

I'm not really hip to what version of allegro does what, or how fast, but I've been looking at the AGS drawing functions, and this:
http://www.udel.edu/CIS/software/dist/allegro-4.2.1/docs/html/alleg020.html

It seems that allegro uses the same function for transparency/lighting for any colour depth, not just 16/32bit: draw_trans_sprite, draw_lit_sprite etc. which AGS uses verbatim (through it's own wrapper function now, it seems).

AGS also has a lot of hacks going on in it which runs different code depending on the colour depth. Couldn't this just be simplified by using the COLOR_MAP functions where the BLENDER functions are used in lower bit depths? Is speed an issue? Memory? I guess you could make pre-baked LUTs on the compilation of the engine - with a good compression algorithm you can make them real tiny. A 100 level LUT set would be 6mb raw, but you could even cut it down to 50 or 25, considering the low fidelity of 8-bit graphics. It would improve the engine's capabilities, and cut down on the amount of ifs there are. The only concern would be palette cycling or doing a lot of palette tweaking, but even in commercial games in the 90s they didn't have those at the same time. I'm pretty sure AGS already uses it for sprite darkening on 8bit sprites, but I could be wrong.

I dunno, it just seems like it could simplify things, considering it's part of allegro already, might as well take advantage of it. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, I don't want to be barking up a wrong tree.

[Billbis]

Not sure if it is Engine related or Editor related, it is probably both.
Is there any good reason not to be able to change a custom property value within AGS script? Why is there no SetProperties functions?
Can it be possible to implement one?
That will make Custom Properties much more useful.
Not a big problem anyway, because workaround solutions are not so hard to setup.

[Crimson Wizard]

Not sure if it is Engine related or Editor related, it is probably both.
Is there any good reason not to be able to change a custom property value within AGS script? Why is there no SetProperties functions?

Mostly engine related, and yes, this request exists for at least 9 years
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=64.0

[Sslaxx]

Yeah, dunno where this one stands, or if it's a good idea at all (probably not), but maybe QuitGame could be extended to give a message on exit? Yeah, this is "inspired" by Icey's insistence on using AbortGame to exit his game normally because QuitGame doesn't give a message... http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48360.msg636458537#msg636458537 being the most recent example (I know of).

[Crimson Wizard]

Yeah, dunno where this one stands, or if it's a good idea at all (probably not), but maybe QuitGame could be extended to give a message on exit?

What kind of message do you have in mind?

[Sslaxx]

Yeah, dunno where this one stands, or if it's a good idea at all (probably not), but maybe QuitGame could be extended to give a message on exit?

What kind of message do you have in mind?

Honestly, I was just thinking of something along the lines of:

Code: AGS

QuitGame (0, "Your message here");

That is, allowing a message to be specified when quitting.

[Crimson Wizard]

Oh. Now, after I read that thread... heheh.

Well, that might be possible, although I should point out that with current engine ports the way this message is displayed varies from platform to platform. E.g. on linux it just prints to console.

[Radiant]

I would like to be able to use 'break' to get out of while loops.

Something that came up recently in a design I was making, is that AGS has a SetWalkbehindBase() function, but no corresponding Get function.

[Knox]

It would be cool if we could set GUIs to be drawn in front or behind characters. Something like:

Code: ags

gMyGui.SetMode(eDrawOverCharacters) or like gMyGui.SetMode(eDrawUnderCharacters)

[Radiant]

I occasionally type in symbols like *= /= &= |= ^= since these work in C / C++. They're not all that important but they would be nice to have at some point.

[Knox]

I'm wondering if it would be possible to set the Display text color globally via script, something like:
Game.DisplayTextColor = 15;

...or make it possible to at least change the text color for text windows, like this:
gMyTextWindow.TextColor = 15;

Seems this could be something that could be fairly easy to implement instead of using the current workarounds, am I right?