hello everyone, some small Questions:

[omerzigdon]

hello you all!

I must say that ags is one of the most perfect things in the world. i played tens of quests and when i saw i can make some myself i was very happy.

I started my work one week ago, and read all the tutorials. They helped me very much, but when you want to start working hard, you see it's not enogh.

I entered the database and read more, and understood some things i didn't know.

Now, I started my game and still I had some problems. So, I understood this is the time to register to the forum.

well, after my introdaction I shall ask you my questions:

1. I want to start my game with a very big cutscene, but i have some problems with it. When I'm telling one of the characters to move from a one place to the other when the player stands on a hotspot and say something he just saying it without stoping, stuck in the place and nothing alse is moving, because it is stuck too.

2. I've downloaded two plugins:
Simple Rain
&
Character Control

I activated them in the Module Manager but than what? I read the scripting tutorial but I didn't understand very much. I will be glad for help.

3. I have read the "Making a custom Quit GUI" tutorial and it says that if I use the last version I can't use the explanation. I already made the Quit GUI but again, maybe because I don't understand the scripting I don't know how to make it work.

I had more questions but I'll wait first for the answers, and than ask more.
Thanks again for everyone - I'm glad I found this place!

[Khris]

Welcome

1. I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, the player says something without stopping, but at the same time he's stuck? Could you explain this a bit better?

2. Usually, plugins add new commands, you should refer to the plugins' docs.

3. The Quit GUI tutorial is probably outdated. Basically, you'd create a GUI with two buttons, one of them just closes the GUI (gMyquitgui.Visible=false; ), the other one quits the Game (QuitGame(0); ). The GUI should be set to pop up modal.

In general, the more specific you are about what exactly you've tried and what code you've used, the better will we be able to help you.

[mouldy]

In the room that you tried to do it in did you mark the walkable areas?

[Gord10]

Welcome;

1. This is what I have understood:
*In the plot, the character walks to the door; when he is near the door, he says something like "Goodbye" and he leaves the room.
*But in the game, the player characters says "Goodbye" while 'he is walking', and he can't go to the other room, because he gets stuck on the hotspot near the door.

Was that your problem? As KhrisMUC said, you should explain the problem better.
Anyway, welcome to AGS

[Ali]

1. I want to start my game with a very big cutscene, but i have some problems with it. When I'm telling one of the characters to move from a one place to the other when the player stands on a hotspot and say something he just saying it without stoping, stuck in the place and nothing alse is moving, because it is stuck too.

I've probably misunderstood, but i the problem that the character stops and starts talking before reaching his destination? Do you have the Say command within the Hotspot interactions?

If so, that isn't really necessary. Get rid of the hotspot interaction and put something like this in your cutscene script:

cEgo.Walk (100, 200, eBlock);
cEgo.Say ("Well, here I am");

The character will wait until he reaches the desired location before talking.

[omerzigdon]

The first problem is that the character (not the main one) is standing in the edge of the screen (in the walkable area) and when it's sapouse to move he's just standing there, and the text he should say while he is moving is shown, without disappearing and you can't move with the main charactor while it is (not) being done.

And about the scripts: I loaded them, and than what? I don't understand.

"cEgo.Walk (100, 200, eBlock);
cEgo.Say ("Well, here I am");"

I under stand I shoud pot it in the script box, but how it's combine with everything else? And how did you learn all the scripts?

[Ishmael]

And how did you learn all the scripts?

The Holy Manual, looking at other people's code, trial and error.

[Ali]

You can't make a character walk and talk at the same time using 'Character.Say'. The easiest thing to do is have a character walk to his destination, and then speak. If simulaneous speech and walking is absolutely essential, check out this module:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=24162.0

I'd strongly reccommend you try something simpler. Since this is an intro cutscene, your code should go in 'Player enters room (after fade-in)' in the room interactions. Something like this should work:

cNpc.Say ("I'm going to walk somewhere now.");
cNpc.Walk (100, 200, eBlock);
cNpc.Say ("Well, here I am!");

In this example 'Npc' should be replaced by the script-o-name of the character you want to move. 'eBlock' ensures that the character reaches its destination before speaking a second time.

You won't be able to control the main character during this sequence because all the events are blocking. If you can't skip the speech, check the skip options on the Game Setting page.

[strazer]

Hi and Welcome to the forums!

1. (...) when the player stands on a hotspot and say something he just saying it without stoping (...)

Sounds to me like you've put your code in the "While player stands on hotspot" event of a hotspot. This event is triggered repeatedly as long as the character stands on that hotspot. If the code you put in there is blocking (a Say command, for example), you have no chance to leave the hotspot and the player gets stuck.

Try using a region instead, and put your code in the "Player walks onto region" event of the region. This event is only triggered once, when the player character first steps onto the region.

2. I've downloaded two plugins:
(...) Character Control

As KrisMUC said, look at the provided documentation and check out the module's demo game to see how things are done.
However, you may want to postpone playing with this until you're more comfortable with AGS. I don't think the CharacterControl module is suitable for beginners.

[omerzigdon]

Ok. thanks everyone!
One last question: how do you recomand to start work on scripting? Even understand how it's work? because when i look in the manual I have got head ache..

[Flashback]

Hi and welcome to ags.
Scripting can be a little hard and annoying at times but here's my advice to you.
Start with small and simple things, like try remaking small parts of your game with scripting, for example try something simple like a small conversation, or a scene where the character walks to a part of a room and picks something up.
Also I think most, if not all of the scripting commands are included somewhere in the manual, just try searching for keywords related to what you are trying to do and you should find something with an explaination of how to use it in your script.
If you have some free time you might want to try learning C/C++ programming languages. I had gathered quite a bit of C/C++ knowlege before I started using AGS and I found it very easy to pick up scripting in AGS because of my previous knowlege. Also there are a lot more tutorials on C/C++ on the internet than there are AGS tutorials so you might want to give it a try.
Hope this has been helpful!

[Khris]

Flashback: If someone already *has* C experience, that sure helps getting started with AGS, but what's the point in learning C before learning AGS? This will only confuse beginners, not only because of the many little differences.

omerzigdon:
If you've never written a single line of code before, the AGS language is a good way to get a basic grasp of what programming/scripting is like.

I'm afraid you'll have to take some painkillers and dive right into it, though.
There's no other way.

And you should start simple, not with Custom GUIs and complicated plugins. Try to get some simple cutscenes done or something like that. If you succeed, that's a good motivation to do more advanced things. Starting with complex game mechanics and failing isn't.

[Alynn]

Id do this...

Start with characters make them move, make them talk, make 2 characters talk while one moves.

Just take the default game, import a room into the editor with a big walkable area and go into the editor for after fade in.

just type in "cEgo." (include the period) and a big list of everything you can do is there, just see what all the stuff does.

Also you can make them walk while talking but you have to use character.SayBackground("").

I find that typing it out... and seeing it work, hits it home quicker.

[Ishmael]

Also, here is one very useful AGS-tech-related resource:

http://americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/index.php/Category:AGS_Beginners%27_FAQ