Walking Character A Nightmare (SOLVED)

[StarLite]

Hello Everyone and good day/night

I desperately need help. Before everyone gets mad at me I just want to say that I've checked the manual as well as the BFAQs, went through most of the messages here, loaded up the demo and went through it, and I am ready to poke myself in the eye with a fork. Here is my problem. First of all please keep in mind that I am not using script for this game. If I have to use script then this game will get deleted.  I can't script at all, I've tried to learn it but my comprehension for it isn't very good, nor is my patience.

I am having a problem with my character's walking. I have the walkable areas right, as well as the walkbehinds, baselines and edgelines. But when I go to test the game my character is walking all over the place. He walks on the walls, ceiling, the bed.  When I hit the walk icon he just moves by himself. I've checked everything in the Views, Character pane. There isn't any reason that I can see why it won't work.

Also, another thing I noticed. When I position the character by the mouse position for instance, when I look at the mouse position and it says the character should be standing at 145, 160. He should be standing in the middle of the walkarea, but during test he is halfway up the wall. But when I position him at 250,250 he is where he should be. Is this some kind of error with my machine?  I'm at my wits end here, please I'm begging someone for help. I managed to get everything else right in the game. Once I get this guy to do what he is supposed to I should be good from here on in. 

Please excuse my long message, I would greatly appreciate any help. Thank you in advance.

StarLite

[Matt Damon]

First of all, hope you don't destroy your game.  I do have *some* help but first feel compelled to give some advice.

IGNORE THIS BIT IF YOU ARE EASILY ANNOYED WITH ADVICE **** The scripting is not as hard as you're making it for yourself--in fact, most of the scripting fills itself in for you if you know what you want to do--and you can leave the manual open at all times (as I do) so all you need to do is remember what you want to do and check the index for it.  For example, if you want to make the character say "I like doughnuts", you just would write the name of your character from the character screen (there's a box there to put a name in) followed by Say.  All you're doing is saying you want character X to Say something.  For example

doug.Say ("I like doughnuts.");  -- the  ; marks the end of the line of code, and the "" are what tells the game it's a message and not a command.  This is the same throughout.  So if you want to make the character walk to coordinates 120, 200, you would just put:

doug.Walk (120, 200, eNoBlock, eWalkableAreas) -- I am copying this directly from the manual, I just put in my own coordinates and my own character's name.  Click on "character functions and properties" in the table of contents and then on what you want your character to do, and the answer should be there.  I would say making a game without scripting is much harder and much more frusterating than making a game with, and I'm an actor, with no scripting experience. 
**** end ignore here!

Making a character walk from one walkable area to the next will always work if you have done everything right, there is little conceivable reason to suspect that your computer would mess this up.  As we all do, often, you have made *some kind* of mistake.  It's easy to do and not the least embarrassing.  Unfortunately, there is not enough info here to fully answer/solve your problem.  Here are some things to check--

--when you imported the graphics for this character, were there large "blank" areas around him/her?  Blank space?  If so, your character's "base" or the bottom where the blank space touches may be on the ground but the animation  may be up on the walls.

--do you have any walkable areas on the walls at all?  Did you use the paint-can feature in the editor to cover the screen in a walkable area or 2?  You may have filled up the screen with one, allowing the character to walk on the walls.

--are you using the keyboard to move the character?  If so, configuring this would probably take scripting, unless these other problems are the cause (or one I haven't thought of)

--how wide are the walkable areas?  If they are too narrow (say only a few pixels) the walking could be screwed up.

--Does the character start on a walkable area?  When you set up the character in the characters screen, did you set the character to begin on coordinates that had walkable areas on them?

--what are you attempting to do?  Be more specific.  Are you clicking the "walk" icon in the game on a walkable area?  Does the character suddenly go off in the opposite direction?  What version of AGS are you using?

All these will help track down the problem, if you still have trouble, tell us, we can see what we can do on the forum.

[StarLite]

Hi Matt Damon:

Thank you very very much for your help.  I am so greatful.  Now I can continue with this game.  I've worked so hard on it for over a year now.  I probably wouldn't delete it, I've put so much work into it.

--when you imported the graphics for this character, were there large "blank" areas around him/her?  Blank space?  If so, your character's "base" or the bottom where the blank space touches may be on the ground but the animation  may be up on the walls.

This was the problem. I cropped the edges and he walks in the right places the way he should. And he seems to stand on the proper mouse positions.

As for script maybe I'll try it some other time. But my experience with script hasn't been pleasant, so I like to try to stay away from it if I can. I tried to learn C++ but I think maybe I didn't have a very good manual to learn it from.

Well I'm on my way again thanks to you. I greatly appreciate the help. Thank you once again. Take care

StarLite

[Khris]

Actually its:

cDoug.Say(...); and cDoug.Walk(...);

AGS's scripting language is way easier than C++. Check the displayed scripting equivalent when adding interactions, you'll find that scripting isn't as hard as you might think.
Of course, building a simple game is absolutely possible without using scripts.

[StarLite]

Hi Khris

I'll probably end up using script sooner or later.  To tell the truth it scares me a bit. I guess everything is learned through trial and error. I'll check it out later. Thanks again.

StarLite

[A�rendyll (formerly Yurina)]

Have you already tried turning Anti-Glide mode on/off? If not, try it. My experience is: no anti-glide, weird movement.

~Yurina

[StarLite]

Thanks Yurina for the reply. I got my guy to walk now.  I'm on to the next room. Thanks again.

StarLite