AGS Awards Ceremony Client App - Feedback, bug reports, suggestions

[Kasander]

-characters that will be freely available for use by all participants (not a "private" avatar only for you)

I'd have no problem with that.

-characters from already released AGS games (though this is not a hard-and-fast rule)

Well, I was going to propose an avatar from my AGS game in progress, but if there's a rule, then let's not make an exception for one person. I'll be perfectly alright using O.S. Dennis or Troll Song troll as avatar

[Snarky]

Well, like I said it's not an absolute rule, and there are already a few exceptions (mostly characters not from games at all).

The reasons for it are mainly:
-to try to make the selection of avatars as a whole reflect the community and the history of AGS games (though that's probably impossible by definition)
-because I don't think it's a good idea to let everyone in the audience pick characters from games that are up for any awards, because I figure it could be a bit crappy to be one of the other nominees if the whole hall is full of people using their avatar to visibly root for the favorite...
-and therefore if we put them in now, we might have to remove/restrict them again in future years

Which isn't a big deal, TBH. It's more that it's putting that responsibility on whoever's dealing with the client app that year, and there's no telling if they'll keep it in mind.

Anyway, that's my thinking, but it's not a matter of principle for me, just some guidelines I encourage. You decide: If you want I should put it in, I'll put it in. I'm just the guy eating worms...

[Kasander]

The reasons for it are mainly:
-to try to make the selection of avatars as a whole reflect the community and the history of AGS games (though that's probably impossible by definition)
-because I don't think it's a good idea to let everyone in the audience pick characters from games that are up for any awards, because I figure it could be a bit crappy to be one of the other nominees if the whole hall is full of people using their avatar to visibly root for the favorite...
-and therefore if we put them in now, we might have to remove/restrict them again in future years

Oh, I didn't think about it that way, tbh. Thanks for the explanation. Those are very good reasons imo, especially the latter two.
No problem at all for me, there's already so many cool avatars to pick! Besides, I'm sure you have lots of more important stuff to look after - worms, bugs and such See you on Sunday then!

[Creamy]

There was also a general call for more different music and more images/animations. Some people also asked about adding more avatars. Yes, this is all still open! If there's music, pictures, animations or avatars you'd like for me to add, please send them to me!

I dont' know if it's still relevant but you can use my other song if you want.

[Snarky]

Just a heads up, you can now download the latest AGS Awards client beta version for testing in half an hour! (link in the first post)

I dont' know if it's still relevant but you can use my other song if you want.

Thanks Creamy! It's a nice song, I'll add it to the "jukebox" (it's not in the beta, though).

Oh, and I see I missed this earlier:

Note: Used headphones earlier, I'm not sure my ears will be able to handle claps and laughs, but are there any other sounds that might be missed if muting that? Alternatively, how about a full GUI with sliders for the volumes, cos I can probably handle very quiet claps and laughs or did I miss a menu like that?

Yes, if you turn off sound effects you'll miss stuff like the fanfare when the winner is announced. I agree that the volume is a bit out of whack. It bothered me personally, but I wasn't going to prioritize it unless someone else reported it. I will see what I can do. A full volume menu might be the way to go.

[AprilSkies]

COW GALORE

[Cassiebsg]

LOL, tks for the bump

[Kasander]

Milkwhite and Fourteen Ponchs. I could play that.

[Snarky]

Thanks AprilSkies, that might actually be helpful! (I can look in the logs to see what was happening right around that time.) I really want to track down that bug; I thought it would be fixed in the latest update, but there must be some other edge condition hiding somewhere...

Man, if I'm doing this next year too, the first thing I'll work on is a way to simulate IRC traffic by reading from a log, so I can replay and trace what happened in cases like this.

And annoying that it never happens when I'm testing by myself... If I put in a ton of logging to really see what's going on inside the client, would anyone be up for yet another test at some point? (I totally understand if you're sick of it by now.)

[Adeel]

Sorry, Snarky; didn't mean to quit but the power went off and, obviously, I had to go (I use a desktop PC). I think the issue of characters moving slowly might have to do something with my high ping. Just few seconds before the power went out, I saw one character moving at a normal pace.

I'm more than fine to have another go, provided that I find time and don't actually forget.

[Tabata]

@April:  cool screenshot Nearly the same time I did one, too (but with first cow bigger and girl normal)

@Snarky: If I am at home it is no prob to jump in again - just send me a line.

[Tramponline]

@Snarky: If I am at home it is no prob to jump in again - just send me a line.

Yep, same here.
Sorry for being so late today - got the flu and fell asleep 15 min before testing commenced (...oh man, I feel like outing myself as 'Professor Hastings' !). 

[Kasander]

Thanks AprilSkies, that might actually be helpful! (I can look in the logs to see what was happening right around that time.) I really want to track down that bug; I thought it would be fixed in the latest update, but there must be some other edge condition hiding somewhere...

Have mine then, maybe it'll help you too. It's a rather funny bug though, I kind of like it. Just look at that first screen, Cassie trolling poor old Max thumbelina-style





I'd like to help you again Snarky, but I'd need to know the time in advance (say, a day or two before the test would be great).

[Ponch]

COW GALORE

Tis truly a magnificent herd!

[Snarky]

Hey, I think I worked it out! If you're interested in behind-the-scenes coding stories...

Spoiler

See, each of the remote participants is represented as a struct, NPC, and they are all stored in an array, npc[MAX_NPC]. There's a variable, npc_count, that keeps track of how many we're currently using (i.e. how many people are online apart from yourself). All the entries above that index are not in use, and are initially blank. When a remote participant logs off, you have to remove it from the npc[] array, but since you can't just delete entries in the middle of an array, the rather clever way this is done is to overwrite it with a copy of the topmost entry in use, npc[npc_count-1], and then reduce npc_count so that the original copy is no longer considered to be "in use". (This should make it so it's as if it no longer exists.) Essentially, you slide another NPC into the slot freed up.

The bug we were having in the first beta was that I had added some fields to the NPC struct, but didn't copy them over correctly when performing this shift. This created some weird hybrid NPCs that had some of their data from one participant and some from another, leading to lots of bugs.

Now, the bug seen in these screenshots from the last beta is because when I set the scaling of each character, I looped through the whole npc array, 0-MAX_NPC. This works fine for all the NPCs from 0 to npc_count, but once you go beyond that, if someone has logged off, you get to the old "leftover" copies of NPCs that have been shifted down. It reads the scaling from these copies and overwrites the correct scaling from the current, active copy. Which isn't noticeable until you change to a different avatar with a different scaling...

The solution was simply to change "while(i<MAX_NPC)" to "while(i<npc_count)".

Time to solve this bug:
-Reviewing logs and screenshots and ruling out some possible causes: 30 minutes
-Setting up multiple clients to try to recreate the bug: 30 minutes
-Adding logging statements and running repeated tests in the clients: 1 hour 30 minutes
-Pondering: 15 minutes
-Studying the logs, tracing through the logic of the code, adding more logging: 45 minutes
-Finding a couple of other small bugs, putting them aside for later so fixing them won't interfere with this bug hunt: 15 minutes
-Spotting the discrepancy in the logs, working out where the error must be: 1 minute
-Fixing the bug in the code: 5 seconds
-Making sure it makes sense and doesn't obviously break something else: 3 minutes
-Testing old and new version side-by-side to verify that it does fix it: 5 minutes
-Celebration: 5 minutes
-Total: (ca.) 3 hours, 59 minutes and 5 seconds

[close]

Anyway, it should really, honestly be fixed now. I've gone over the code so closely that if it doesn't work now, there must be something wrong with me.

Edit: BTW, if you don't look at sticky threads, let me point out the poll for picking the date and time of the ceremony there up top. (Ah shoot! cat got to it before me!)

[cat]

Vote for your favorite day and time of the ceremony!

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=51512.msg636509338#msg636509338

[Snarky]

I'd like to help you again Snarky, but I'd need to know the time in advance (say, a day or two before the test would be great).

Well, since it's looking like the event will be held on 20:00 UTC on Saturday or Sunday, should we say Friday night at that time for the final dress rehearsal?

[Snarky]

Hey, a quick request: I thought I'd add a Rincewind avatar in memory of Terry Pratchett, and I found sprite sheets here.

However, after futzing about with it for a while, I decided it was taking too much time while I still have other things to finish. So if there's any one of you who wouldn't mind converting the sprite sheets to an AGS character (just the standing/walk views, optionally a talk view) in CHA/CHR format, that would be great.

These are the problems that made me give up:
-the front walk view seems to be missing some frames. I think you need to flip the existing frames, but only the body, not the head
-the back walk view looks weird when animated. The frames may be out of order, or maybe you need to mirror some again. Might want to compare with a video from the game
-the sprites are not aligned, so tiled import won't work as-is

If anyone has the time to tackle it, I'd appreciate it!

[AprilSkies]

I can do it, but not right now. prolly I'll be able to do it tomorrow (let's say after 16:00 gmt).
If someone can make it before, please write here.
done.. I hope it looks good ^^

[Snarky]

OK, are you ready for the final beta test, or do you have something better to do on a Friday night? (I know, I know, what could be better than hanging out with me in in the Awards lounge? )

Edit: Thanks to everyone who helped out with the three beta tests! As a reminder, if you were there tonight, please send me your logs, which are in the game directory and are called something like "game 2015-03-20 21-33-45.log"

(Guess there is something wrong with me. Gah! I'll have a final crack at fixing this &*#@ing bug by Sunday.)