Adventure Game Studio

AGS Support => Beginners' Technical Questions => Topic started by: Alyx2.0 on Wed 04/06/2008 16:57:44

Title: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: Alyx2.0 on Wed 04/06/2008 16:57:44
Hi, hopefully these aren't incredibly annoying n00b questions but I did a couple of searches and couldn't find anything.

Basically before I spend ages getting to grips with another game making programme, creating animations, working on scripts etc. I want to know if AGS can do two things before I start:

1) Can I play full screen movies/play fullscreen pictures in rapid succession/use fullscreen animations?
I need to be able to seamlessly mix gameplay and movies, kinda like what Square did at the start of FF7. Though during these times I don't plan on letting the player have any control, so they're not interactive movies that the player can move over/interact with but actual movie-movies.... if that made sense.

2) Can I create an alignment system?
That is a way in which a players conversation choices, items they can acquire, rooms they can enter and NPC reactions change depending on how good or bad they are.
(I.E a variable which is added/subtracted to depending on certain choices the player makes.)
If you've ever played a Bioware game you'll know what I mean.

I hope these things are both possible and relatively simple to implement...

But once again, sorry if these have already been asked/are incredibly stupid things to ask.
I opened up AGS and was overwhelmed by the thought of having to teach myself to use another complex programme o_o;; 
So I'd rather not waste time working to do something that will be insanely hard to implement (I'm pretty rubbish at coding) or impossible...

Thanks in advance! :]
Title: Re: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: DoorKnobHandle on Wed 04/06/2008 17:00:42
It's all possible.

1.) You can play video files in full-screen with the script-command "PlayVideo" (see manual on how to use).

2.) You can use variables to track the player's "good-" or "badness" and then change the game outcome or whatever according to the value (read the bfaq on how to use variables).

Good luck and welcome.
Title: Re: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: Alyx2.0 on Wed 04/06/2008 17:04:52
Thanks for answering my questions so quickly =D

It seems as if AGS is perfect for what I need to do then :]
Title: Re: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: LeChuck on Wed 04/06/2008 17:08:21
You've got to be prepared to do some scripting to get your alignment system up and running, but you can find all that in the manual or by using common sense (seeing as you familiarized yourself with another game making program). Just a heads-up.

Does anyone NOT use scripting when making an AGS game these days? It's awfully slow to use those pulldown menus to make a game...
Title: Re: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: Alyx2.0 on Wed 04/06/2008 17:25:53
Ah well I'm prepared to do scripting, it's just for the last game maker I used, after getting my alignment system working, I ran into many, many problems trying to get full screen movies to work.
After hours of tinkering with a script that went way over my head I figured there had to be an easier way.

Thanks for the reply though :]
Title: Re: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: Khris on Wed 04/06/2008 18:53:36
For an example of seamlessly integrated full screen "movies", try Prodigal (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=644).
They are keeping the quiet about how they did it; my guess is they simply painted screen-sized sprites every 1/20 seconds or something.
Title: Re: Can I implement fullscreen movies/an alignment system in an AGS game?
Post by: LimpingFish on Wed 04/06/2008 23:42:51
Y'know, I've been wondering about that for a long time. ;D

It seems that is, or is similar to, how they did it.

I tried to replicate the technique myself, using timed sprites, and it works pretty much how I expected it to. It's only really viable at 320x240, if even, as it really bloats the overall file size of the game. I tried it at 640x480, but the file size almost immediately got out of hand.

Of course, the less frames each "movie" has, the more space you'll save.

I'd stick to 15fps, or even 12fps, and a resolution of 320x240.