AGS 3.3 Wishlist

[Joe]

The possibility of creating objects on the fly would be perfect


So that I can do something like this:

Code: ags

Object *myWonderfulObject = Object.Create.......

That would be wonderful for those modules which use objects that should be created via script... they won't need to create the same object in different rooms within the editor, like in particle modules...

Thanks for reading.

[Yeppoh]

Hello. I'm quite new around here and working on my AGS game during my free time. When I'll have a concrete demo to show you'll be the first to know. Maybe CJ did read it many times already, but : Great work for this editor !

During the scripting of some SFX it occured to me something was missing for the DynamicSprite.
Since there's a DynamicSprite.Tint() function I would like a DynamicSprite.Transparency() one. It will be useful for Overlays with alphablended sprites mainly (and my echo effect).
If it's something that can be done.
I tried many ways with DrawingSurface, not to avail.

Cheers.

[GarageGothic]

Yes, I think alpha channel support for DrawingSurfaces would be among my top priorities as well. That way you could draw sprites onto cleared surfaces using the transparency setting without finding only the ugly magic pink peering through them.

[Khris]

If you .Clear(0) the DrawingSurface first, you can draw DynSprites onto it using .DrawImage's transparency parameter.
There should be no need to directly change a DynamicSprite's transparency (which feels awkward anyhow).

[GarageGothic]

Khris, I agree that you need not to change the transparency of DynamicSprites. But with the current DrawingSurface setup, any sprites drawn to a clear DrawingSurface using the DrawImage transparency parameter will just show the magic pink color through the transparent sprite. The resulting DrawingSurface will not have varying degrees of transparency.

[Yeppoh]

Yep. That would have been the most logic solution.

Tried.
Doesn't work that way.

Either it's still blank (if alpha  as true), or drawn onto a plain FF00FF transparency color silhouette (if alpha as false) like GarageGothic described.

[Trent R]

I'd like a keyboard shortcut that will show the parameters of the function you're currently in. Like what happens right after your type the opening parenthesis of
player.Walk(


~Trent

[Joe]

And It'd also be marvellious to add somethig to make games don't stretch in panoramic screens...

[GarageGothic]

The widescreen issue has been brought up several times (often by myself):

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=33896.0
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=24993.0

I totally agree that we need better support for 16:9 and 16:9 aspect ratios, My personal interest in the topic back then was to make a 640x480 game that could also run in 640x400 mode without compiling two separate .exe files. But since then, widescreen monitors have pretty much become the standard, and it begins to feel like a weakness of the engine that the highest widescreen resolution currently available in AGS is 640x400.
The main obstacle so far seems to be that there aren't any true standards for widescreen resolutions, and the ones most common (1280x800, 1680x1050) are much higher than any current AGS resolution. 1024x576/1024x640 seem reasonable widescreen resolutions, but I don't know how well supported they are by current hardware. 960x540/960x600 are apparently more common, but they don't make it easy to create a game that also supports 4:3 resolutions.

Edit: If, on the other hand, you just mean something that adds black bars at the sides of a 4:3 viewport, your video card should be able to do so already if you go to the Display Properties  (in my Nvidia drivers you can even set this up on a program-by-program basis) . But it would nevertheless be a nice winsetup option too.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I've been thinking lately why AGS doesn't create backups for you.
Perhaps just in the FILE menu, you could select Backup Game, the chosen backup directory would be the default (unless changed).

And whenever you Backup your game, it resets the "Backup your game" reminder.  Once the reminder pops up, it asks you whether or not you want to Backup your game.  This way you shouldn't hear about people losing their files because of a crash or glitch.

Perhaps even a note within the Backup game window, suggesting you Backup your game on a separate hard drive than that of your current save location.
Without thinking about Hard drive failure, some might backup their games on the same hard drive as the 'work' files.

[GarageGothic]

Yeah, it would be great if AGS automatically (of course with an option to prompt you or simply turn it off) backed up your game instead of just warning you. Even better if it compressed the backup using an open source archiver like 7-Zip and stored it with a file name containing the date of the backup.

Edit: Another suggestion, based on Dualnames post in the beginner's forum.  It would be great  if you could supply FillSaveGameList with an optional range parameter. That way you could for instance use FillSaveGameList(40) for your save game menu but FillSaveGameList(50) for your restore game menu so it would also display special savegames like autosave and quicksave (correctly ordered by save time) without risking the player overwriting them.

[apegomp]

3D pixels :'(

[monkey0506]

Khris, I agree that you need not to change the transparency of DynamicSprites. But with the current DrawingSurface setup, any sprites drawn to a clear DrawingSurface using the DrawImage transparency parameter will just show the magic pink color through the transparent sprite. The resulting DrawingSurface will not have varying degrees of transparency.

Although this is true, GUI/Character/Object transparency should still apply. So depending what you're using it for, it could be worked around. To prevent drawing my alpha sprites via the DrawingSurface functions, I've done this in the Flashlight module:

Code: ags

DynamicSprite *sprite = DynamicSprite.CreateFromExistingSprite(the_alpha_sprite, true);
sprite.Resize(new_alpha_width, new_alpha_height); // optional step
sprite.ChangeCanvasSize(new_sprite_width, new_sprite_height, alpha_x, alpha_y);

Displayed on a GUI it works fine. As I said, it does depend what you're wanting to use it for...drawing effects on the background wouldn't really work, but you might be able to get away with using Objects instead...of course if AGS could actually clear the surface to a transparent layer instead of the magic pink bitmap that would definitely be advantageous. Just saying not strictly speaking impossible to get around this limitation.

[GarageGothic]

True, you can make the final sprite transparent by displaying it as a GUI, character or object, but all the elements you draw to it must be 100% opaque. My main interest in this would be for particle systems, and it's really, really difficult to make anything looking even similar to real smoke without layering transparent and/or alpha-channel sprites - trust me, I've tried and unless it can be drawn directly to the background, hence allowing those effects, it ends up very solid and flat, even when made transparent afterward. Even more or less solid particles like snowflakes can look quite rough when everything else in the game uses anti-aliased edges.

[monkey0506]

Fair enough.

[Khris]

Please, include an explanation of how to use player.ActiveInventory in the tutorial.

[subspark]

Being able to use regions for mask alpha.
For example, lets say you have a room with a window on the left that is casting light down to the floor at 45 degrees. Ideally I would create a white mask for light that affects characters and objects only and use a 'blending mode' such as screen. I would then vertically place multiple walkable regions with varying power so that the mask's alpha affect on a character/object can be tuned up or down depending on where in vertical space the character is walking.

A great effect that could be achieved with masks, regions and blend modes.

Cheers,
Sparx.

[Scavenger]

How about something akin to "Screen" in Photoshop/PSP?

I.E:


rather than



ergo producing a more accurate approximation of lighting. Useful for projector screens, stained glass windows, and those reflections you just can't get otherwise. It alliviates the problem of holograms being too dark, and yeah. I'm sure it wouldn't take more processing power than a transparency x3

[subspark]

How about something akin to "Screen" in Photoshop/PSP?

Why not take this further. Why not have screen, multiply and difference.

Blend modes in Photoshop are incredibly useful and some of these would be an ideal feature set for AGS.
Among the many other benefits, an obvious use for this, as Scavenger and I pointed out is lighting effects.

Edit:
I would also very much love to see 1280x800 (16:10) support.

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Le Woltaire]

Here are my proposals:

Graphics:
- I think subpixel rendering for scaled sprite movements with Direct3D support at 32-colordepth would be great because the characters look and move stutteringly when they are scaled. In higher resolutions this becomes more and more obvious, because the artwork tends to be more detailed and fine.


- I think it is time to make it possible to import vector sprites at least as EPS (With solid fillings). This would reduce the size of large backgrounds and sprites and add to the speed and fluidness of very big animated objects. Especially games that use just a few colors would profit from this possibility. Apart of that those sprites would work independently from the games resolution.

- When a game starts in Window mode, could it be possible to make the maximize icon active in order to make it run in full screen mode?

Music and Sounds:
- Could a function PlayMusicEx (int channel, int music, int volume, int x, int y) be introduced, so that music can be dealt like an ambient sound? Especially if music is part of the game (A Band in the game, A Radio) this can be handy. You might say, that this could be also done with ambient sounds, but if the same music has to be heard later as full background music or that it has to be effected by the MusicVolumeAdjust, PlayMusicEx would be better... Also two ambient musics would be possible. Say you pass with your character next to a tavern and hear the music from inside while you pass at a certain x and y. When you enter the tavern you hear the music as full background music... Individual music fadings at certain positions would be possible...

- The SayBackground function doesn't seem to get affected by the voice script, so that background Speech can't be heard...

Text Parser:
- Is it possible to export the content of the text parser word list into a single txt or xls file with all the word group and type info, so that it can be better distributed to translators and proofreaders? (I had to make thirty screenshots last time and the translators have to type them off and understand them somehow)

- The limit of text parser words should be much higher than 1500 because if translations get added this limit is easily reached by all kind of foreign words.

Organization:
- Folders for room organization or a sort rooms by name option would be useful. There exist so many games now with more than 100 rooms. For me it is very confusing to find the room that I'm looking for.

- Can Music and Sound files get script names somehow?

System:
- I am getting more and more mails from Linux and Mac users. I think it would be time to think a lot about an update of the mac-port or an implementation of a mac version compiler...