Suggestions about painting areas and transparent dialog screen

[Mats Berglinn]

I have got some suggestions for a future version of AGS (I hope it will mean in the very near future).

Suggestion number one: I think that there should be a zoom-in and zoom-out for painting the areas in the Room Editor. You see, just for fun I paint walkable areas, walk-behinds and hotspots on backgrounds from Day of the Tentacle and it's quite though to fill in very small details. It's quite likely that you paint over a section which is not meant to be painted, for instance painting a foreground cactus and you by mistake paint a part of the floor. Annoying, isn't it? Therefore it would be good if you can zoom in on a background and easier paint on the right places, much like in Paint. It would also be great if you could have more ways to paint the areas than the free-hand, fill and line, for example that if you are going to paint a door you could do it by making a square (either just outline or full), again just like in paint. That way it's going a lot faster than just free-hand, and line.
Another thing that would be good is a undone button that doesn't just undo the latest mistake you do but that you can do several times which is helpful if you done wrong twice or more. Also an erraser would be good so that you can errase one walk-behind area which was wrong and still keep another walk-behind (same color) that was perfect instead of using the wipe out. If you just wipe out a color you have to start everything from scratch (don't you agree that it's so annoying?).

Suggestion number two: Making the dialog-list transparant.
Having that black area around the dialog list isn't so appopriate when you make games with full backgrounds (not like the early LucasArts game which uses the Verb Box SCUMM GUI, those have back spaces for the Interface). If you look at games like Full Throttle and Curse of Monkey Island there are no black space in the dialog list. I think that you should have a function which you can change between having a black space (usefull for SCUMM-GUI games) and not having a black space.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

1.1 - The zoom function is already in the tracker, and been there for a loooooooooooong time...
1.2 - I support the multiple undos.

2 - Heh, even CJ agrees the whole dialog system has to be revamped. Curretly, it's the least customizable thing in AGS.

[strazer]

Also an erraser would be good so that you can errase one walk-behind area which was wrong and still keep another walk-behind (same color) that was perfect instead of using the wipe out. If you just wipe out a color you have to start everything from scratch (don't you agree that it's so annoying?).

Just fill it with color 0.

Suggestion number two: Making the dialog-list transparant.

Can't you use a custom GUI ("Dialog options on GUI x") and make that transparent?

[monkey0506]

Sorry to bring up this dead topic, but if you use my scrolling dialogue template (see Tech Archive) you could easily make the background color for dialogue options blank.  Just make a GUI to hold the options, and make the background color transparent.

[Proskrito]

what strazer said works with the default dialog system too.

And the options for drawing walkable / walkbehind areas thing has been discussed a million times, and most of the times the answer has been: "use the same graphics program you use to make your backgrounds to make those areas" as it probably has zoom / multiple undos, etc.

[Scummbuddy]

there is also the windows zoom tool under

programs -> accessories-> accessibility

I used it to do fine details on walkables, but after awhile it can mess with your eyes. plus it takes up a lot of the screen, depending on your zoom settings. of course i would love the different pen sizes and shapes, plus a zoom, but especially right now, CJ has tons of stuff he is making sure is going right, and then can focus on the smaller additions to AGS.

multiple undos would also be nice.

Edit* perhaps this new paint and zoom program could make a nice plugin?