I know this would probably be the hardest thing to implement, but in a perfect world this would be done ;)
In the room you could select lightsources, like you draw hotspots. No fake lights is added from these its just a guide. And then when characters move around the room they can have shadows follwing them according to the light sources. The would be really good. As a good background would probably have shadows in it and it would make no sense for the character to be walking around like a ghost.
I get the strange feeling this is impossible.. lol
Yeah, it's not really practical for AGS to calculate the shape of the shadow at various angles, based on a 2D sprite. Sorry.
Ah well, no biggy.
Just would have looked cool ;)
Personally, I wouldn't know how many users would need the shadow thing. Then again, I could be wrong.
But an option for you would be to draw the shadows with each frame yourself if you need a shadow.
Or Chris could implement a simple feature (In case in one room you want to disable shadows) where you can add the shadows to a different view. EG:
Character View (View 1) Shadow View (view 2)
Loop1 is equivelant to loop1 here
loop2 " " to loop2 here
Etc...
And the view 2 loops will follow the view 1 loops to become a shadow.
Although personally, you might be better off drawing the shadows in yourself for now.
JD
check out AGAST it can do this
and when i say check it out i mean look at how it doesn't look good at all. sure a shadow is cast but it doesn't interact with the terrain at all and if you go near stairs or something the shadow just stays straight floating in the air.
since there's no 3d version of the 3d room for it to figure out what the room would look like in 3d
Maybe it could be edited to change when over a walkable area or region. No?
I can slightly remember a plugin.... based on a "3d"-room or something.. uhm...
It would be kind of nice though. Btw.. How did CMI do this?
CMI didn't have dynamic shadows, they probably just had a seperate shadow that was slightly transparent that appeared below the characer
http://www.mobygames.com/game/shots/p,3/gameId,547/gameShotId,28913/
their shadows should be cast behind them
Yuk. Look at those spindly legs.
How did he do such great stunts... with such little feet?