AGS 2.6 Final - it's that time of year

[GarageGothic]

Thanks Chris, I'll check it out.

Aside from the size/performance thing, will there be any future features that REQUIRE 32-bit, the same way that there are some things we now can only do in 256 color, and other that only work in 16 bit? Things like lightmaps, edge-antialiasing of characters etc. (all of these hypothetical of course), would they work in 16 AND 32 bit, or 32 bit only?

[Pumaman]

That would be great! High thanks, Chris

Done in beta 4, it should work fine now.

Aside from the size/performance thing, will there be any future features that REQUIRE 32-bit, the same way that there are some things we now can only do in 256 color, and other that only work in 16 bit?

32-bit has the same features as 16-bit. The only exception to that will be if alpha channel support for sprites is added, which will only be possible in 32-bit due to the way it works.

[scotch]

alpha transparency on sprites and seperate x and y walk speeds, these two will improve the quality of my ags games so much.  AGS is now complete for me well, until I come up with some new urgent feature.

I'll test out the alpha sprites today, see how fast they run.

[Ferret]

The alpha's are working nicely. Great job CJ.

Although (not in relation to alpha's), I've noticed that AGS loses the mouse focus when in fullscreen. You'd have to click around the screen until you find the area that AGS responds to before the cursor gets back in your control. Keyboard focus still responds as normal though.

[Spyros]

Can someone explain about alpha transparency?

[Vel]

Pretty much ditto Spyros. I do not know of its pros.

[Ferret]

Alpha refers to the transparency aspect of a scene, object or pixel and usually consist of a 24bit RGB and an 8bit alpha channel allowing for 256 levels of transparency for each pixel in the image.

Benefits of this is it allows a type of anti-aliasing to be applied to the image (prior to on-screen rendering as the anti-aliasing has already been performed on the image when it was saved) and also allows for many different levels of transparency within the one one object (for example, a GUI with a solid border and semi-transparent background).

[scotch]

Edit: Agentloaf got in first

It means that for every pixel of a sprite you can set a transparency level, 256 levels of transparency for each pixel, this means that you can have antialiased edges on characters, and you can have semi transparent objects such as glass windows, there are lots of things you could use it for.
To make the graphics you'll need something like PSP, or photoshop, and draw the graphics on a transparent background, then save in a 32 bit format like png or tga which ags can import.  Then you just use them as you would any other sprite.

[MrColossal]

and if you don't understand what loaf said:

it allows you to have characters with a blurred line for a border instead of always having to have a hard edge

and sprites can go from totally solid to semi transparent to totally transparent

[Vel]

Woah!
That totally rocks!

[Pumaman]

Scotch has very nicely put together an alpha blending test game. Could everyone please try it out and report what frame rate you get (along with your CPU speed and graphics card):

http://www.agsforums.com/Alpha32.zip

This also demonstrates visually what alpha blending is - look around the edges of the character, and walk behind the window at the back of the room and you can see the effect.

[MrColossal]

64 fps

2.2 ghz

GeForce 4 Ti4400

[SSH]

25 fps
Pentium III 600 Mhz
Trident Cyberblade e4-128

oh, and i think we'll see a lot of games in development double their size...

[miguel]

68-73 fps

amd 1800+

geforce 4200

[Inkoddi]

116-131 fps  640x480

EDIT:490-511 fps 320X240

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz

GeForce 4 Ti4200

512Mb DDR

FOUND A BUG!!! When i checked the "Anti-Aliased scaled sprites" the character just disappeared when scaled

[ThunderStorm]

22-24 fps

Pentium II 350 MHz
Nvidia Riva 128

[scotch]

Inkoddi : I made CJ aware of that, also the character disappears if on a region with light levels or tinting, they will be turned off for alpha sprites in the next version I think.

Oh yes, and I get 82-85 FPS
XP2600+
Geforce FX 5600 256mb

[Vel]

Can someone please make a tutorial how to make an alpha channel in PSP? I cant seem to figure it out.

[Privateer Puddin']

158 to 164
Dual Intel Xeon 2.66GHz
Radeon 9500 Pro 128mb

Laptop:
28-35
Intel Celeron 498MHz
ATI RAGE mobility

[Scavenger]

Like, oh my god. There's finally alpha! And dynamic GUIs! And Z-Ordering! And smooth gradients! Hehe. All hail CJ!

Alpha Blend Test:
15-21fps
Pentium II 233Mhz
Unknown Graphics Card

Hmm.. faster than hi-res, but still slow. Oh well! I'll stick to 8/16bit .