AGS 3.2 Final 5 - Recession-busting edition

[Pumaman]

With the world mired in recession, the only way out must surely be to make games!

Changes in 3.2 Final 5:
* Fixed memory leak with sound playing
* Fixed editor crash XmlException: An error occurred while parsing EntityName.
* Fixed GUI anti-aliasing not working if it had no background color or image


Changes in 3.2 Final 4:

* Added $APPDATADIR$ support to File.Open to allow you to write files to an accessible folder that is not the Save Games folder
* Fixed AudioClip.Play crash if No Digital Sound was selected
* Fixed Game.StopAudio() crashing
* Fixed DX5 driver not always clearing side borders correctly when returning from alt+tab
* Fixed legacy SetSoundVolume command not affecting viewframe-linked sounds or score sound
* Fixed GUI button clicks not working until you move the mouse if a GUI appeared just under the mouse and there was a Wait() just before the code that made the GUI visible
* Fixed editor crash if you set an object's image to -1

Changes in 3.2 Final 3:

* Fixed legacy SetSoundVolume command changing the music as well as the sound volume
* Fixed anti-aliased TTF rendering giving pink edges in 16-bit games (though it is recommended that you only use anti-aliased TTFs in 32-bit games, they don't look very good in 16-bit).

Changes in 3.2 Final 2:

* Added support for anti-aliased TTF fonts in all situations where they weren't previously supported.
* Updated 9-verb template from Abstauber
* Improved widescreen side border detection with 320x200 games
* Legacy compatibility: updated SetGameOption(OPT_CROSSFADE) to also update the new-style Music audio clip crossfade setting
* Fixed mouse not detecting GUI controls if one became visible just under where the mouse was
* Fixed Game.StopAudio stopping rather than fading out track if crossfade was enabled for one of the playing audio clips

Changes in 3.2 Final:

* Added Game.SetAudioTypeSpeechVolumeDrop to provide a new-style equivalent to game.speech_music_drop
* Improved editor robustness to recover if the Game.agf.user file was corrupt
* "Export all sprites in folder" command now exports 32-bit sprites as PNGs to prevent losing alpha channel
* Updated to latest 9-verb template (thanks Abstauber!)
* Fixed GUI controls not updating properly if the control moved under the mouse, but the mouse didn't move
* Fixed problem restoring a game if the music was crossfading when the game was saved
* Fixed offset of currently playing audio not always being restored correctly when restoring a game with OGG audio clips
* Fixed "Close all other tabs" crashing if a room editor with unsaved changes was one of the other tabs
* Fixed the editor Preferences window only allowing you to type 5 characters in if you wanted to manually enter a path for the New Game Directory or Import Directory
* Fixed changing a walk-behind baseline not marking the room as modified
* Fixed compilation errors if you named a character with only numeric digits, eg "c500"


Changes in 3.2 RC 3:

* Added Game.SetAudioTypeVolume command
* When upgrading a game from a previous version, fixed a problem if sound/music files had upper case letters in their file names (eg. MUSIC5.OGG)
* Mouse.IsButtonDown now works with eMouseMiddle
* Importing a 2.72 game now sets Enforce New Audio Scripting to false by default
* Fixed crash with AudioClip.Play if the AUDIO.VOX file was missing
* Fixed crash restoring a game if you saved the game while music was crossfading
* Fixed SetSoundVolume not affecting frame-linked or score sound
* Fixed IsSoundPlaying not working properly if sound was disabled in setup
* Fixed issues with audio when skipping a cutscene
* Fixed music position not being restored properly when you restored a save game
* Fixed problem with characters getting stuck when colliding, introduced by RC2
* Fixed widescreen borders not working with 800x600 games
* Fixed old-style SetFrameSound command not working properly
* Fixed Character.PlaceOnWalkableArea crash if called from game_start


Changes in 3.2 RC 2:

* Updated 9-verb template to include the documentation PDF file (thanks abstauber!)
* Added manual page describing rep_exec and rep_exec_always, since these were not really properly documented
* Moved "Developer Name" into the main top section of General Settings now that it is displayed on the game exe
* Global Variables editor now allows you to create AudioChannel* variables
* Changed D3D LightLevel rendering to properly match DX5
* Fixed D3D Tint with luminance of 0 rendering as luminance of 100%
* Fixed bug with script dirty flags not being updated properly, introduced in RC1
* Fixed some compatibility issues with old-style PlayMusic/GetCurrentMusic and save games
* Fixed score sound and frame-linked sounds sometimes playing instead of the sound you wanted, when using old-style PlaySound command
* Fixed screenshots not working properly if widescreen side borders were enabled
* Fixed IsKeyPressed not working with the following keys: [ ]  ; ' , . /
* Fixed character gliding if he bumped into another solid character and MovementLinkedToAnimation was false
* Fixed script editor crash if you saved the script while the final function was missing its closing brace
* Fixed editor crash creating new game if the template was from a previous version with Sound/Music folders
* Fixed editor crash if you tried to preview an audio clip but had deleted the file
* Fixed GUI label text not being anti-aliased if there was a background image but the BGColor was set to 0
* Fixed old-style ViewFrame.Sound property throwing error if you tried to set it to 0

Changes in 3.2 RC 1:

* Added abstauber's LEC-style template
* Updated demo game to use new audio commands
* Added plugin API event IRoomController.PreSaveRoom; events AGSE_PRESAVEGAME and AGSE_POSTRESTOREGAME
* Wrote the "Upgrading to AGS 3.2" page in the manual. Please let me know if this answers initial questions about the new audio system, or if there's anything else it should cover
* The Restart Point save file (AGSSAVE.999) is no longer deleted when you quit the game, to fix a problem where RestartGame didn't work if you started the game by double-clicking an Enhanced Save Game file in explorer
* Winsetup now displays the game name in the title bar instead of "Adventure Game Studio"
* Fixed character/object tints in D3D not matching DX5
* Fixed TintScreen in D3D so that it looks the same as DX5
* Fixed GUI AdditiveOpacity mode not working properly if you tried to have a non-alpha sprite on an alpha GUI (eg. a save game screenshot)
* Fixed SetBackgroundFrame in Player Enters Screen event causing old frame to flash up briefly with D3D driver

Changes in 3.2 beta 5:

* AudioClip.Play now removes any queued audio clips of that type, like PlayMusic used to do
* Added editor plugin API method IGUIController.ActivePane
* Fixed beta 4 crash the second time you compiled the game
* Fixed DynamicSprite.Rotate cropping 1 pixel off the left side when rotating an image with an odd width/height
* Fixed Game.SpriteWidth/SpriteHeight returning the size of the blue cup instead of 0 if you supplied an invalid sprite number
* Fixed script editor issue if you typed some text, switched to another tab, then came back and did Undo
* Fixed crossfade problem with old-style PlayMusic commands, introduced by beta 3
* Fixed editor crash if you tried to use a non-icon file as TEMPLATE.ICO
* Fixed mouse cursor being drawn in dialog options in DX5 mode even when Mouse.Visible was set to false
* Fixed IsMusicVoxAvailable always returning 0 with 3.2 betas

Changes in 3.2 beta 4:

* Added option to automatically add side borders when running 4:3 games on widescreen monitors
* The generated EXE version information is now set to your Game Name and Developer Name instead of "Adventure Game Studio" and "Chris Jones"
* Improved graphics mode detection so that the screen doesn't keep flickering when trying to start up a low-res game full screen
* Changed the pathfinder so that the character cannot get stuck if he ends up outside one of the room edges
* Improved error handling if you passed an int to a string argument in String.Format
* Fixed light levels >100% not working with Direct3D driver
* Fixed theora video being permanently muted after you played one video with muted audio
* Fixed Object.MergeIntoBackground not working with Direct3D driver
* Fixed String.Format to give error instead of crash if you try to format a string longer than 3000 chars
* Fixed Room.GetDrawingSurfaceForBackground to give error instead of crash if you call it from game_Start

Changes in 3.2 beta 3:

* Added crossfading support to new audio system.
* Added eMouseMiddleInv support to on_mouse_click
* Editor now automatically converts any old Play Music On Room Load setting into a line of script in the room's Player Enters Screen event
* Editor property grid now displays a drop-down list instead of a text box when selecting a font or room
* Removed limit on number of text parser words
* Updated Default Game template to use new audio system
* New menu option to remove old Global Messages from the game, to stop them coming out in translation sources
* Disallowed accented characters like é in script names in the editor, because they wouldn't compile
* Fixed Seek for OGG audio clips to have the same accuracy as PlayFrom
* Fixed error running game and problems with save games if there were unicode characters in the folder path
* Fixed error compiling the game if the game had no Music folder
* Fixed ShakeScreenBackground not clearing letterbox borders properly if you switched from a large to a small shake
* Fixed "Internal compiler error: table overflow" if there were a lot of imported functions/variables
* Fixed compiler crash if a dialog script just had a @ on a line on its own
* Fixed autocomplete editor crash if there was a line break inside an array indexer
* Fixed sprite import window crash if you right-clicked in the second stage of tiled import


Changes in 3.2 beta 2:

* Implemented Audio Types editor
* Score Sound and ViewFrame-linked sound updated to work with Audio Clips; script ViewFrame.Sound property replaced with new ViewFrame.LinkedAudio property
* Added AudioChannel.SetRoomLocation function to emulate the facility provided by directional ambient sounds
* Added AudioChannel.LengthMs property
* Implemented the speech volume drop setting for Audio Types
* Improved accuracy of Position property with OGG audio
* Removed room properties Play Music On Load, Music Volume and Save/Load Enabled since they are now obsolete
* Dynamic sprite deletion warning is now only displayed on exit if Debug Mode is turned on
* Changes to improve music glitching when changing rooms in D3D mode
* Fixed editor crash if you tried to delete an audio clip when a preview of it was playing
* Fixed Sierra-style speech box moving if the room was scrolled around while it was displayed
* Fixed Dynamic Sprites causing memory corruption if a mouse cursor was set to sprite 0
* Fixed Make Default Language command crashing if two different source lines mapped to the same translated line
* Fixed crash importing old game if there was no Sound or Music folder
* Fixed intermittent crash when playing WAV/MOD in beta 1
* Fixed keypresses and mouse clicks being ignored after restoring a save game in beta 1

Changes in 3.2 beta 1:

* Rewrote audio system. The old number-based sound and music are gone, replaced with new named audio clips. Added AudioClip.*, AudioChannel.*, Game.IsAudioPlaying, Game.StopAudio, System.AudioChannels, System.AudioChannelCount, System.Volume script commands.
* Added Game.IgnoreUserInputAfterTextTimeoutMs, Maths.Exp, Maths.Log, Maths.Log10, Maths.Cosh, Maths.Sinh, Maths.Tanh
* Added Applies To feature to custom properties, so that you can have properties that only apply to Rooms or Characters, for example
* Improved colour quality of mini-sprites displayed in sprite manager
* Improved the user-friendliness of some error messages, thanks to Error Reporting
* Disabled editor option to save changes whilst the game was running, since doing so could cause sprite file corruption
* Renamed the "handle inventory clicks in script" general setting to better reflect what it does
* Fixed sprite entry getting duplicated if you dragged a sprite to the end of the list
* Fixed crash with Hq2x and Hq3x graphics filters (3.1.2 regression)
* Fixed Compress Sprites setting not taking effect until you next edited some sprites
* Fixed struct member functions with more than 9 parameters giving run-time error
* Fixed File commands looking in the wrong directory if you launched the game by double-clicking a save game in explorer
* Fixed run-time error if you returned a string from a function that was a member of a local dynamic array
* Fixed sprite cache corruption if you had a single sprite larger than 20 MB
* Fixed editor crash creating new game if your Windows username had unicode characters in it
* Fixed Views tree collapsing after renaming or drag-dropping a view
* Fixed editor crash on startup if you made the editor window very small before closing it down last time
* Fixed when importing an 8-bit image, if there was another palette slot in the image with the same colour as the transparent slot it got changed to black
* Fixed no line number provided when DynamicSprite.CreateFromDrawingSurface threw an error

New Audio System

The main change in this release is the re-written audio system.

It is still a bit rough round the edges and is not claiming to be complete, but I thought it was a good time to get some feedback on it from you guys.

When you load (A BACKUP COPY!!!!) of your game into this beta editor, you'll notice that you now see all the sound and music imported into the project tree. They will initially be given names like aMusic50 and aSound16. If you want the old commands like PlaySound and PlayMusic to continue working, you must leave them with these names.

To play an audio clip, just do:
aAudioName.Play();

If you want to be able to fiddle with the audio once it is playing, you can do this:
AudioChannel *channel = aAudioName.Play();
and then later:
channel.Volume = 60;  (for example)

The new audio system has a concept called audio types, which are the way that sound and music are split up.

The only difference between them is that the Music audio type is limited to 1 audio channel, whereas the Sound audio type is unlimited (within the overall 8 channels that is). This is for ease-of-use, so that when you play a new Music it will automatically stop any existing one that is playing; whereas this won't be the case with sounds.


http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/AGS-3.2-Final5.exe

[GarageGothic]

Sweet. I don't have many sounds in my game yet, but I'll definitely take the new audio functions for a spin.

* Added Applies To feature to custom properties, so that you can have properties that only apply to Rooms or Characters, for example

Sounds very practical, I was actually thinking about the problem with the properties window becoming cluttered just the other day.

* Fixed no line number provided when DynamicSprite.CreateFromDrawingSurface threw an error

Thanks, now I can start troubleshooting that code.

Great work as always, CJ!

Edit: Perhaps this has been reported before, but if you try to "Open" the game you're currently editing (a save/reload is apparently necessary for changes to the "applies to" value of custom property to register in the editor), you get the message "Cannot load the game, because it is already open in another copy of the AGS Editor".

Edit 2: Fixed the scripting problem that I couldn't locate in previous version because DynamicSprite.CreateFromDrawingSurface didn't return a line number. Good thing I waited, because it turned out it was somewhere else entirely than I suspected. Many thanks!

[xenogia]

Amazing I look forward to trying it out.

EDIT:
I thought I would just bring up two different bugs.

1. Light levels between DD5 and DX9 where light tinting doesn't work correctly when using DX9 mode.  The thread is here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37672.0

2. The issue when playing OGG Theora video files where if you play a video with audio bypassed then play a video with audio it won't play the audio of video file that is required.  Thread is here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37610.0

[GrogGames]

WOW, GREAT!!!

NowI'm doing and testing a IMuse module

I'll informate any bug  I find



EDIT:
the simultaneous reproduction works fine with ogg, but its not suported by midi, will you implement this feature in some future releases?




thanks

[Gilbert]

I think simultaneous playing of MIDI is very difficult (if it is ever possible at all) to do. To reliably implement it you must make sure that the side playing the musics has two MIDI playback devices (which theoretically shouldn't be hard as modern systems usually only use soft-synths as oppose to hardware, but unfortunately AFAIK few soft-synth drivers would emulate two devices at the same time).

[Pumaman]

Edit: Perhaps this has been reported before, but if you try to "Open" the game you're currently editing you get the message "Cannot load the game, because it is already open in another copy of the AGS Editor".

Well, you should never need to Open the game that is already open...

(a save/reload is apparently necessary for changes to the "applies to" value of custom property to register in the editor)

I can't replicate this, can you provide step-by-step instructions for how to see this problem?

1. Light levels between DD5 and DX9 where light tinting doesn't work correctly when using DX9 mode.  The thread is here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37672.0

2. The issue when playing OGG Theora video files where if you play a video with audio bypassed then play a video with audio it won't play the audio of video file that is required.  Thread is here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37610.0

Ok thanks, I will look into these once I have finished with the audio system changes.

the simultaneous reproduction works fine with ogg, but its not suported by midi, will you implement this feature in some future releases?

The audio library that AGS uses only supports one MIDI at a time, and due to the fact that most people have moved away from MIDI and into digital music nowadays I don't think I can justify investing the large amount of time that would be necessary to get multiple playback working.

I will however update the manual page to clarify this limitation.

[GarageGothic]

(a save/reload is apparently necessary for changes to the "applies to" value of custom property to register in the editor)

I can't replicate this, can you provide step-by-step instructions for how to see this problem?

Never mind, I can't replicate it either. I could swear that this happened when I imported my game into 3.2 BETA 1, but doing it again everything seems to work fine. Must have confused some similarly named properties. Sorry 'bout that.

[Dualnames]

Woot, downloading and will test my game.

[subspark]

Edit: Perhaps this has been reported before, but if you try to "Open" the game you're currently editing you get the message "Cannot load the game, because it is already open in another copy of the AGS Editor".

Well, you should never need to Open the game that is already open...

I think he means that the error message is counter-intuitive, Chris. I don't think any of us are THAT stupid lol.
Nice work with the new version too! Great to see new systems coming into AGS mate. Well done!

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Ishmael]

* Added Applies To feature to custom properties, so that you can have properties that only apply to Rooms or Characters, for example

Finally, thank you! I've been waiting for this since the dawn of properties or so.

And the new audio system seems very spiffy. A thought that crossed my mind on handling places that want a number, score sound etc.: Have a pre-set audio file name that you set the desired audio file to, and it's automatically used? Like you set aScoreSound on some clip and you're all set. Ofcource this wouldn't work just like that for everything, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. But it might need a good reference on the manual, unless the editor provides one on the fly for the more complex currently number-based sound bits.

[Joe]

My compiled game crashed and it generated a "CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp" file but i don't know how to open it. I don't think is't because of scripting since It never happened to me when I compile the same version of my game using the previous version of AGS.

How do I open the "CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp" file?

[Trent R]

This looks great! DLing right now, and I'll toss my projects into it tonight.

How do I open the "CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp" file?

You don't. Upload it to a space and send it to CJ.


~Trent

[GrogGames]

We are trying to make an imuse system where the instruments load in different ogg files (with the same length) and reproduce at the same time, so when you move from one region of the room to another some instruments will start playing while other may stop or the other way around. What should happen is that the new sounds should start looping following the reproduction time of the ones that are already playing while that isn't what's happening. Instead of that , they start with a little random lag, for example:
We have 2 oggs with 30 sec duration, battery and guitar. In region 1, battery is playing and in region 2 while battery is still playing the guitar starts playing too. Lets say that on sec 17 i move from region 1 to 2. What should happen is that the guitar file should start playing its 17th sec and on, but what actually happens is that it may start between sec 17-19 randomly thus changing the global rythm of the music.

This is the code where I add the differents instruments:

Code: ags

//Im combining a struct with array to store the imuse instruments
#define MAXINSTR 10

struct type_instrument{
  AudioClip* Clip;
  AudioChannel* Channel;
  bool waittoplay;
};

type_instrument instrument[MAXINSTR];

//To add and instrument, i change waittoplay to true (and change other less important stuff too), then i do this in repeatedly execute:
function repeatedly_execute()
{
  int NewClip = 0;
  while(NewClip  < MAXINSTR){
    if(instrument[NewClip].waittoplay){
      //search a Clip Playing and store the position
      int position = 0;
      int counter = 0;      
      int clipplaying = 0;
      while(counter < MAXINSTR){
        if(instrument[counter].Channel)
          clipplaying =  counter; 
        counter++;}
        position = instrument[clipplaying].Canal.Position;
      //then, play the clip in that position 
      instrument[NewClip].Channel= instrument[NewClip].Clip.PlayFrom(position, eAudioPriorityNormal, eRepeat);

Here is a sample, using the same instrument 2 times:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lzimgw33ozw
(In this demo i use position-300 in playfrom,  for a minor lag time)

Try walking to the green region, that lag is not always equal.


Thanks for your time
Nahuel36

[Pumaman]

A thought that crossed my mind on handling places that want a number, score sound etc.: Have a pre-set audio file name that you set the desired audio file to, and it's automatically used? Like you set aScoreSound on some clip and you're all set

Yes, this is one of the things I still need to sort out. I'm currently thinking about different ways to do this.

My compiled game crashed and it generated a "CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp" file but i don't know how to open it. I don't think is't because of scripting since It never happened to me when I compile the same version of my game using the previous version of AGS.

How do I open the "CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp" file?

As Trent says, you don't open it. It contains information for me that will help me track down what caused the crash, so if you could upload it and post the link to the file for me to investigate, that would be great.

What should happen is that the new sounds should start looping following the reproduction time of the ones that are already playing while that isn't what's happening. Instead of that , they start with a little random lag, for example:

The OGG decoder does some buffering which means it decodes the audio in blocks; the Position is only accurate to the nearest block (however it should be the same as what GetMP3PosMillis used to return). I did some investigation about this a while back, I'll look into it further as it might be easy to fix.

[Joe]

Ok here you are: http://joecarlhr.googlepages.com/CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp

[Dualnames]

CJ, I found a glitch but not 100% sure it's with AGS 3.2.1 bu I managed to reproduce it twice on it.

Well, to start things properly, I loaded my game from 3.1.2 to 3.2.1 everything seemed fine, so I started testing the game to see if indeed it is. At some point I saved the game, and when I loaded it mouse clicks and keypresses didn't work, when however the game changed room everything was cool, and mouse clicks worked properly and keypresses too. I tried to reproduce it on 3.1.2 but didn't,but I could easily reproduce it with 3.2.1, probably this doesn;t help at all.. but there's something having to do when loading a game. For when I save it everything works fine. I've been trying to reproduce it on 3.1.2 till last night, but I've yet to manage. Does anything have to do with savegames appearing on the savelist gui from two different interpeters?

EDIT: Oh, and with the new system and all, what's the equivalent of PlayAmbientSound?, I know its aSoundClip42.Play, but is there a way to create the same effect that ambient sound did with the new system? Perhaps panning?

[GarageGothic]

Thanks for pointing out the Panning property, Dualnames, I had missed that - excellent addition CJ, many thanks! I look forward to playing around with that for my footstep sounds script.

I love the new audio system, seems to work great. But would it be possible to add an AudioClip.Length property? Perhaps it makes more sense with an AudioChannel.Length (since all the get/set position functions are called on channels), but I would find it quite practical to be able to retrieve the length of each clip without actually playing them.

Edit: Also, are there any plans for allowing us to play back Speech audio through regular AudioClip functions -  something like aSpeechEgo1.Play()? Currently there seems to be no way of accessing those lines short of the normal Dialog/Say functions.

[Pumaman]

Ok here you are: http://joecarlhr.googlepages.com/CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp

Thanks. Did you notice if the game was playing or was about to play any sound/music when the crash happened?

Is the game small enough to be uploaded for me to investigate?

At some point I saved the game, and when I loaded it mouse clicks and keypresses didn't work

Thanks for this, I think there's a problem related to the new Game.IgnoreUserInputAfterTextTimeoutMs property and loading save games; I'll look into it.

Oh, and with the new system and all, what's the equivalent of PlayAmbientSound?, I know its aSoundClip42.Play, but is there a way to create the same effect that ambient sound did with the new system? Perhaps panning?

If you're referring to the (X,Y) location that you used to be able to pass to PlayAmbientSound, then that is no longer supported. I wasn't sure whether anybody was actually using it; if so, it can make a comeback.

But would it be possible to add an AudioClip.Length property? Perhaps it makes more sense with an AudioChannel.Length (since all the get/set position functions are called on channels), but I would find it quite practical to be able to retrieve the length of each clip without actually playing them.

I'll see if it's possible to add this for the various audio types.

Edit: Also, are there any plans for allowing us to play back Speech audio through regular AudioClip functions -  something like aSpeechEgo1.Play()? Currently there seems to be no way of accessing those lines short of the normal Dialog/Say functions.

Speech has deliberately been kept separate from these audio changes, however some sort of PlaySpeech command may well be added later.

[Joe]

Ok here you are: http://joecarlhr.googlepages.com/CrashInfo.3.20.1080.dmp

Thanks. Did you notice if the game was playing or was about to play any sound/music when the crash happened?

Is the game small enough to be uploaded for me to investigate?

Yes it should play a sound just when the game crashes. And compiled the game without modifiyng the code I used in AGS 3.1.2

Hmm the game source is 14mb and I don't know where to upload that size since google pages just let me uploading files smaller than 10mb

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I'm sure lots of people use fixed locations for sound playback; I know I do.  Also, I was wondering if there's a flag in the audio settings to enable/disable looping so you can easily have a sound or music file repeat (I can't seem to find any info on it)?