No pointer cursor? (SOLVED)

[paolo]

<sigh> I always feel like such a n00b when I get stuck on something basic and have to post here. Anyway, let me swallow my pride...

I've set up one room and one character in my game. The player starts in room 3 (note that there is no room 1 yet as it isn't ready to go in yet).

When I run the game, there is no pointer cursor. I can guess where I am and click in various parts of the walkable area, and the character walks around OK, but I have no idea where the cursor is. It doesn't even come up when I press Ctrl+Q. Fortunately, I can exit the game by pressing Enter as the "Quit" button is highlighted (or I could just close the game window).

If I look at Cursors, I see that "Standard cursor mode" is checked for cursors 0 to 3, but is greyed out and unchecked for cursors 4, 6 and 7 (cursor 6 being the pointer cursor) and just unchecked for the other cursors. Furthermore, the cursor images consist of just a dot for the hotspot position. This is probably what is wrong, but why aren't the cursors there? Where have they gone? I don't think I've done anything to delete them.

Thanks for any help.

[Ashen]

If you've only got one room and one character, is this a newly started game? If so, it's possible you strted from the 'Empty Game' template, which doesn't have the default graphics. Are the others there? (GUI graphics, Roger's sprites).
If they're not you can either import your own, or start another game with the 'Default Game' template. (You should be able to copy the room across and export/import the character, so it's not that much work.) If they are, I don't know what could've happened to the cursor graphics. Try re-assigning them and see if they stick this time.

Oh, and modes 4, 6 and 7 are supposed to be 'greyed out' like that - they're reserved use modes (pointer, Use Inv and Wait) that aren't allowed in the standard cursor cycle.

[Ghost]

This sounds as if you've been using the Empty Game template. This one doesn't contain sprites for the cursors.

All you need to do is to import a sprite, any sprite, and in the Cursors section, select Change Image and select that sprite.

"Standard Cursor Mode" just determines if a cursor is part of the "cycle" that's used in Sierra type games.

So just create a cursor sprite, set it, and you should be home and dry.

Edit: Ashen beat me.  Sorry.

[paolo]

Thanks, Ashen, Ghost, that's exactly what I did - started from an empty game. Yep, I see that I need to import new sprites for my cursors. Oh well, that's a good excuse to draw some nicer ones!

Thanks again - I can get on with things now.

[Buckethead]

Strange, I'm pretty sure the editor gives a very clear message about the template being empty. Kinda strange that you've missed it.

[Ghost]

Well, if you're new to AGS you may assume that a cursor is something hard-coded, not something that needs a sprite.

Happy cursor designing, paolo! 

[Neutrino-pop]

I just had this same problem and think its worth noting by default there are 9 cursor types and each uses null image. So make sure the appropriate cursor type is assigned to the desired sprite.

[Ashen]

Actually there are 10, numbered 0 - 9, and they only use the 'null' image if you start under the 'Empty game' template - pretty obviously, as the 'Empty game' template HAS NO SPRITES. With the 'Default game', they each have a unique cursor image except modes 8 and 9 - Usermode1/1 - which use the graphic for 'Walk To' until you assign them something better. (But it doesn't really matter, as they're not part of the default 'cycle' of modes, and actually aren't often seen in many games...)

It's easy enough to click through the warning screen without noticing it - I usually do - but it's not really recommended. It also generates a template.txt file that says the same thing.

[paolo]

It's easy enough to click through the warning screen without noticing it - I usually do - but it's not really recommended.

Yes, that's what I did. As it is, all the cursors and GUIs the game are going to have a particular look and feel, so this wasn't such a bad thing in the end.