Adventure Game Studio

AGS Support => Advanced Technical Forum => Topic started by: TerranRich on Tue 06/04/2004 17:50:19

Title: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: TerranRich on Tue 06/04/2004 17:50:19
Before you say anthing, I know this is already in the FUTURE.TXT document included with AGS, at like the very bottom of the list. I wanted to know, how hard is this to implement, CJ? Relatively hard? I want to know, because I am starting to learn Flash (MX 2004) and I suddenly had the idea of using Flash for my opening/ending credits. Also, how high of a priority is this to you?

Does anybody else agree that this would be a great feature and very useful?
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: Scummbuddy on Tue 06/04/2004 17:52:43
Jannar and I, and Im sure Ibex, Igor, Nixxon....
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: TerranRich on Tue 06/04/2004 17:57:17
Has anyone used the Bug/Feature Tracker in the past few months at all? I see that it hasn't really been updated.

But yeah, awesome, anyone who wants this implemented, please reply, so it gets CJ's attention. ;)
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SSH on Tue 06/04/2004 18:02:19
Presumably Flash can output animations as AVI one way or another...?
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: TerranRich on Tue 06/04/2004 18:20:47
I"m sure it can, but with much performance and/or quality loss, I believe. Maybe that's why it isn't a big priority, because of that feature. Well, maybe it wasn't such a big deal to ask for after all... :P
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: veryweirdguy on Tue 06/04/2004 19:23:47
The only problem with saving .avis in Flash (as far as I can see) is file size.

In a quick test I did, I opened a little movie that was 124kb as a .swf. I went to 'Export movie as' and saved it as an uncompressed .avi (I chose 'uncompressed' as I didn't know which compressers would work with this movie & which ones would work in AGS). The final size for the .avi turned out to be 106mb :(.

So yes, I think a feature like the one Terran suggests would be useful.
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SSH on Tue 06/04/2004 19:38:26
I don't think that it is news to anyone that an uncompressed video is bigger than a SWF. AGS uses media player to display AVIs IIRC, so if your media player uspports compressor X, so will AGS.

The question is, what should the priority of this be versus other suggestions: and I was pointing out that this can be worked around, while other problems cannot...

Anyway, maybe what would be best is if there is some way for CJ to support the Gecko plugin API. That way, any Mozilla plugins would also work with AGS, including Flash.
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: Pumaman on Tue 06/04/2004 20:38:16
I refer you to this thread:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=11313

In summary, the answer is no, but it might be possible for someone to write as a plugin.
Title: Re:Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: Scorpiorus on Tue 06/04/2004 20:58:42
netmonkey tried to incorporate the macromedia flash plugin (ocx) which is used for example by iexplorer but there are currently some problems with the implementation side.

I also took a look and had attemps to find some API as well. I've found SWFSource SDK which I did't make a use of so far (project file is for msvs net and I'm with msvc 6.0 right now. I'll try to recreate a project under 6.0 and see if it can get it work). But If somebody know other SDKs please let us know :)
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: on Tue 06/03/2007 20:33:27
Sorry to drag this extremely old thread up, but I need a simple yes/no answer,

does AGS support flash (swf) animations yet? :)
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: DoorKnobHandle on Tue 06/03/2007 20:49:07
Quote from: Mods on Tue 06/03/2007 20:33:27
does AGS support flash (swf) animations yet? :)

No.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SinSin on Wed 16/05/2007 23:01:36
I was dabbling in the art of flash last night, and I had in mind a post I read about exporting a flash movie into ags...
Of course the answer is no you cant.........

BUT i made a discovery and this may help a few people get the effect they are looking for

if you create a movie in Macromedia Flash 8 you can export the file into an AVI
(veryweirdguy mentioned this before but he said the file size was way too big eg: 106mb)
However  if you use the method below you can create an effective 13 sec video with no sound and it have the file size of 150 KB

Simply create your movie then click export       then as movie
ensure that the save type is AVI... Duh

Ensure the dimensions and colour depth fit your game eg 320 X 200 ETC  & 16 bit colour
tick the other three boxes
And if you wish check the Sound Format is disabled (or if you want the sound you added enable it )(note this will make the file a bit bigger )

Ensure that the codec is
                                         Cinepak Codec by Radius
Make the compression Quality = 100
Data rate set to 300kbs
and key frame every 15 fames is good enough
Click ok and Voila a video that is no bigger than a small 5 room game

When you would like to inport this into the game startup  this thread
Thanks to ASHEN for the Help

Import problems  (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=31283.msg401458#msg401458)

Hope this helps

Sin
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: subspark on Thu 17/05/2007 03:24:30
In an alternative route to flash adventure games why not build your own flash engine. FlashAGS anyone? Please don't abbreviate that.  :=

Some examples of flash based graphic adventures:
http://www.langleycreations.com/andrew/blog/experiments/flage1/ (http://www.langleycreations.com/andrew/blog/experiments/flage1/)
http://theexchangestudent.com/index.php?option=com_contentask=blogsection&id=4&Itemid=27 (http://theexchangestudent.com/index.php?option=com_contentask=blogsection&id=4&Itemid=27)
http://lassie.gmacwill.com/lower.php?section=games&page=index (http://lassie.gmacwill.com/lower.php?section=games&page=index)
http://www.weremsoft.com.ar/flash-scumm/ (http://www.weremsoft.com.ar/flash-scumm/)
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SinSin on Thu 17/05/2007 12:08:04
I think the reason this thread started was to ask whether or not AGS supported Flash files
generally i think that this means that the person who started it does'nt know programming to well, so thrusting the idea of them building an engine into there head is pretty unessisary innit
i mean not being nasty or owt just stating a point
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: subspark on Thu 17/05/2007 13:47:42
Well you can keep your point. In all honesty the information I submitted was directed at everyone and not the induvidual who started the thread. If somebody else makes a flash engine or we all use an existing one (see the links) then our friend TerranRich may be inclined to make use of it.

Cheers,
PW.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SinSin on Sun 20/05/2007 20:16:05
Quote from: TerranRich on Tue 06/04/2004 17:50:19
I suddenly had the idea of using Flash for my opening/ending credits. Also, how high of a priority is this to you?

Does anybody else agree that this would be a great feature and very useful?

Here it clearly states that he would like to create OPENING/ENDING Credits
Not I want to abandon Ags and use a different system 

Sin
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: strazer on Sun 20/05/2007 20:26:28
People, please, re-read each other's posts and try to imagine the other person not trying to be rude to you. Don't be touchy, I'm sure there's just a smiley missing here and there.

Anyway, personal attacks end here!

/moderator
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: subspark on Mon 21/05/2007 01:30:38
Come on fellers. Cheer up!
We're suggesting tools and alternatives for your benefit. I took the time out of my very busy day to soucre out links that might help you create flash games. I never suggested you ditch our beloved AGS for something else although I will admit my suggestion may have been better in the General Topic forum.
My apologies for that.

Pls try not to snap at people who wish to assist you.  :'(

Cheers,
PW.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SupSuper on Tue 22/05/2007 01:18:17
Can't Flash export in other formats that AGS can use?
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SinSin on Tue 22/05/2007 11:07:30
I will check this out later today but there are a few different formats that it will export to ...
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: scotch on Tue 22/05/2007 14:05:30
Flash is able to export frames to gif/png sequences, which is handy for when you're using it for character animations. It could also export an entire movie to an image sequence, for conversion to a FLC cutscene. For non 256 colour games, AVI export is the best option for an intro or cutscene in most cases.
It would be possible to incorporate one of the open source flash players into a plugin, to provide some limited swf playing ability, but not worth doing in my opinion.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: strazer on Tue 22/05/2007 14:24:10
(In reply to SinSin):

I thought the whole purpose of using Flash in AGS was to get the filesize down. Exporting the animation to a video that AGS can play will take up a lot more space.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: SinSin on Tue 22/05/2007 16:41:54
I was just trying to work out a way of exporting an effective video with minimal filesize ::)
The best way i have found so far was the one below
In this example i tested a movie which if was not compressed turned out to be 106mb
But if i compressed it with the Codec below it turned out to be 106kb

I have used this method in my game for a couple of ads (including an AGS advert) 
The game as it stands has 10 rooms + and a number of different objects and regions and the game as it stands so far is only 3.7 mb so compared with the 106 mb (movie only) filesize that was mentioned earlier i think this is a drastic down size in the compiled folder size
Title: News?
Post by: HorsE. on Sat 29/11/2008 04:20:08
Greetings.

Are there any news about possible Flash support?

Basically me and a friend are planning to create a long rpg/adventure game of erotic nature but our problem is the following: We would like to have interactive cutscenes in the game. That means quality pictures with animated parts, and also possibilities to control the scene by choosing from different options. GAS is basically perfect for a complicate game with many characters, but Flash would be the best way to create the interactive scenes. We can do it without it but that means so many hard and complicate scripting, and tons of imjages for the animations. Such a scene would be some Kb in Flash, but will take up Megabites of images if we do it with AGS. So if we could simply embed Flash cutscenes into the game, that would be a perfect solution.

So this is why I am interested in it if there is any chance to do it.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: subspark on Tue 02/12/2008 09:27:20
Digging up an old thread. Tisk. I don't think Chris is actually going to implement any raw flash support into AGS. Better to use flash for flash based games so to speak. ;)
On the other hand, as suggested many times before, you can export images and movies from flash for use in the AGS engine. File/Export...

Cheers,
Sparx.
Title: Re: Suggestion: Flash Movie Support
Post by: Pumaman on Tue 02/12/2008 18:17:18
There are no current plans to add SWF support to AGS.