AGS Awards 2014 AGS Client - Now soliciting avatars!

[Snarky]

Adventure game gods willing, there will be a live AGS Awards ceremony over AGS/IRC this year as well. (Here's the one from last year):

[embed=640,360]<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pb03pzWyEJU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/embed]

However, Dualnames is too busy with other projects, so it falls on my far less competent shoulders to update the client for this year's awards. One of the things I would like to add is more avatars from AGS games. (The LucasArts/Sierra sprites are fun, but shouldn't an AGS event primarily feature AGS characters?)

To make this happen depends on you! If you want a character from your AGS game as an avatar for the ceremony, please contact me (over PM). I'll need:

• The full set of NormalView sprites (character walkcycle + standing frames, normally in 4 directions)
• The name of the character and what game it comes from
• Whether or not it's OK to include the character (with attribution) in the open-source release of the app after the ceremony

If you can, it'd be great if you could also include the talk view and a "special move" animation (e.g. a wave, a jump, ...), though I'm not sure I'll have time to implement those features in the app. The characters can be any resolution/dimensions, and the assets in any AGS-readable format (including a .CHA exported character file).

I can't guarantee that I'll be able to include every character you send me, and I probably won't include more than one or two characters from any one game. But please! I'd much rather be overwhelmed by offers than have too few, so Send! Send! Send! (Oh, and one of the avatars will be Oceanspirit Dennis. Any recommendations for which game to take his sprites from?)

Edit: Also, any other suggestions, feature requests or offers to lend a hand are welcome.

[AGA]

The most important feature request would be for the client not to crash so frequently, taking 90% of the channel offline simultaneously.  That happened the last couple of years this client was used, for whatever reason...

[Andail]

Awesome that you're taking care of this, I'll try to attend the event this time.

[Radiant]

Great idea! I'll send you some sprites over PM.

(Oh, and one of the avatars will be Oceanspirit Dennis. Any recommendations for which game to take his sprites from?)

How about Oceanspirit Danish?

The most important feature request would be for the client not to crash so frequently, taking 90% of the channel offline simultaneously.  That happened the last couple of years this client was used, for whatever reason...

If I recall correctly, that's caused by invalid characters in a text string; some filtering should do the trick.

[AGA]

If I recall correctly, that's caused by invalid characters in a text string; some filtering should do the trick.

That might be the weird characters IRC to show formatting like bolding and colouring.  Stripping it back to plain text should be fine, given the graphical nature of the presentation.  And how hyperactive the AGS Awards channel is, making it impossible to catch any nuances fancier formatting might provide anyway...

[Snarky]

The most important feature request would be for the client not to crash so frequently, taking 90% of the channel offline simultaneously.  That happened the last couple of years this client was used, for whatever reason...

Yes... I haven't been able to replicate any crashes yet, but it's possible Dualnames already patched one particular bug from last year, and he just explained how another one happened, so I'll look into that. We'll have to do another beta test, I think. I'll add in more text filtering (there is some already) and do more testing with text clients participating.

How about Oceanspirit Danish?

I was going to say that I was hoping for an avatar from each game that's up for an award this year, to be used exclusively by the creator(s) (I've added a way to password-protect certain avatars). But then I'm shocked to see that OSDanish isn't among the finalists for any award... Anyway, yes, would love to have an avatar from there! (And also from Heroine's Quest. Past winners/nominees are a high priority, and we don't have any female avatars from AGS games yet.)

[AGA]

I think the extremely high volume of the real ceremony may have caused a problem too, as I would assume beta testing was done on a much smaller scale.  Might be good to get tons of volunteers if possiblefor a quick pre Awards test ceremony at some point; get people to really hammer the system as the actual ceremony does.

[Snarky]

Yes, we should definitely try to do that. It's difficult to get enough people to show up all at the same time just for bugtesting, though.

[AGA]

I can stick up a forumwide banner, which might help.

[Creamy]

Hello Snarky,

I probably won't be able to attend the ceremony (different time zone) but you can find some views of Lizaigne from "a night in Berry" here.
You can include her with attribution in the open-source release of the app after the ceremony if you want.

Good luck with the organization.

[Radiant]

Sent a bunch of chars

[Snarky]

Just a small reminder bump: there's still time to have your avatars included in the ceremony!

Thanks to everyone who's sent me their characters so far: I'm so excited to see all the AGS chars mingling!

Also, one quick question: Can anyone identify this character, which was an avatar in the last couple of years' ceremonies? The sprites say "Formica", but although there is an AGSer by that name, it doesn't look like his/her graphics style (at least not in Ugal's Embrace):

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/yxRf0tv.png[/imgzoom]

[Dualnames]

it's from IGOR HARDY.

[Snarky]

Thanks!

[moloko]

I'd love to send in Ponderabilia's Nikee, but I have no access to a PC atm, just the walking and standing sprite animations. Do you think it would be possible for you to convert them? . I realize this is inconvenient, so I'd be much obliged...

All the best,
Moloko

[Snarky]

Well! Those are beautiful sprites, and I'd love to have her in the ceremony (the importing is no problem), but I'm having some doubts on the dress code front... Since its' an open-form event and you never know what people might do or say, I'm just a little worried (from past experience) that this avatar might encourage a bawdy tone that could alienate some AGSers. And Lord knows the AGS Awards aren't the most formal shindig, but did anyone attend the Oscars this weekend stark naked?

So I guess what I'm saying is it would be GREAT if you had a version with clothes. Sorry to be oversensitive!

[selmiak]

And Lord knows the AGS Awards aren't the most formal shindig, but did anyone attend the Oscars this weekend stark naked?

Well, almost...

[Snarky]

Hmmm, OK, I'm convinced!
I'll add Nikee along with Guido, but maybe save them for the afterparty? (By which I mean, they won't be available for the ceremony itself, but I'll unlock them after the awards are over. Is that OK?)

--- Oh, and it would still be great to get a clothed version for the main event.

[moloko]

Time to add a touch of class, then. Here's a special award avatar. We're not going home with any, so may as well outclass the rest. . That said, this feels very uncharacteristic for her. Let me know if these will do.

[Cassiebsg]

I probably won't be attending the awards, but maybe someone would like to use Minifeg as an avatar?

[Snarky]

Let me know if these will do.

Nice, thanks!

I probably won't be attending the awards, but maybe someone would like to use Minifeg as an avatar?

Sure, just send me the file and I'll stick it in!

In case anyone's curious, this brings the total number of avatars up to almost 80. We started with about 30 (mostly LucasArts sprites), people have sent me a bit more than 20 avatars for general use, plus 12 reserved for nominees (if you have a nominated game and haven't yet sent me an avatar, please do so ASAP!). In adition I've grabbed characters from opensource AGS games. It should be a very AGSy event!

[Snarky]

Dude, these are messed up. The frames are out of order, and you're missing a standing frame.

Also, when people submit in tiled format, it would be useful if you let me know the tile size.

[moloko]

As said, I didnt' have a PC at hand to check consistency. That said, I do now, and tbh I don't think I had any of these problems. The standing frames are there, the tile size is simply the image divided by the instances (it shows the image size when tiling, so just divide that size by the instances of the character.).

I am sorry I made this difficult for you, however, especially since you're already willing to do me this favor. I exported a .cha file for you to use, so if all goes well this ought to work. Here it is.

[Snarky]

Thanks! No, I'm sorry I snapped. I'd been messing around with the AGS tile import and was getting frustrated (I never use it myself; it just seems incredibly fiddly, and if you press a wrong button or forget to check that checkbox you import a bunch of wrong sprites and lose all the setup you had). On closer look I see that the right walkcycle frames are simply in reverse order (presumably because you mirrored the left cycle). I still don't see a right standing frame, though. CHA file should make things a lot easier.

[moloko]

Well, you'd think I'd just be able to mirror the left walkcycle, but the dress splits on the right side, so no go there. It's different and custom with leg showing. The AGS sprite editor allows you to simply flip a frame or reuse a different frame whereever you like. It's fiddly and tedious, but it's the only way I know how.

[Cassiebsg]

Oh, I forgot to mention, fell free to add Minifeg to open source.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I'm seconding Moloko, I'd love to see Nikee as an avatar.

[Snarky]

She's in there, both with and sans dress!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me avatars so far. There's a pretty good selection now, but we could always use more!