Suggestion: Backgrounds smaller than screen res.

[GarageGothic]

This is a minor issue, but how come the GUI needs to cover part of the background? I know it's the traditional Sierra style, to have the GUI pop op over the upper part of the background screen, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to need to draw the background letterboxed to be able to use the LucasArts interface without cutting off the lower part of the background.
I suppose the black areas on letterboxed screens compress very well, but still, it would be nice to just be able to either center the background image (for small rooms such as the back room in the church in GK1) or to align the upper left corner to a certain coordinate.

I'm doing a game with a PQ4 like interface (the GUI is in the lower black area of the letterboxed screen), and currently it means an additional 40 pixels of black at the bottom of all my background images.

Thanks. Sorry if this has been suggested before.

[Gilbert]

Why? drawing your room with proper size and painting teh unwanted area black is good enough IMO.

[Scorpiorus]

I think he is refering that such images have large one-color areas resulting in increasing game size (comparing with original images of course).

[GarageGothic]

Yes, that's what I meant Scorpiorus.

As I said, it IS a minor issue. Because the black areas probably compress pretty well when you zip the compiled game. But on the other hand, it's just one of many workarounds for getting AGS to behave in a SCUMM-like manner. I just mentioned it, because it seems like an odd thing, not being able to place the GUI outside the actual background, but I'm sure there is a technical explanation for it.

[Gilbert]

Of course I know about that, but however, note that backgrounds in rooms were all compressed, just a big area of flat colour won't add much to the file size I can guarantee.

[Pumaman]

I understand your request, but since AGS allows you to turn GUIs off at any time, there has to be something behind the GUI for it to show if you do so. This is the reason why the background has to be full-screen size - and as you've realised, the background image is compressed inside the room file anyway, so it's no big deal.